288 Pages 80 Color Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    Serpulid polychaetes are a unique and highly specialised group of marine segmented worms that have adapted to inhabiting self-secreted calcareous tubes attached to a wide range of hard substrates. These animals are found across all depths and habitats of the world’s oceans, and some form mutually beneficial associations with live corals. The genus Hydroides is of special concern and importance, as it is not only the largest, but also one of the most ecologically and economically important groups of marine invertebrates because it includes notorious biofoulers and common bioinvaders that travel around the world hitchhiking on ships’ hulls.

    This is the first fully illustrated guide to this notorious serpulid genus of calcareous tubeworms, providing a comprehensive diagnostic treatment of all known species of the genus Hydroides. This important reference provides reliable identification tools to distinguish tubeworms from potential alien invaders that constantly arrive from overseas and threaten maritime transport, trade and mariculture.

    Acknowledgements

    Chapter 1: Introduction

    Chapter 2: Tubes

    Chapter 3: History of studies

    Chapter 4: Reproduction, development and life history

    Chapter 5: Ontogeny: reversible asymmetry, compensatory regeneration and duplicity

    Chapter 6: Economic and ecological impacts

    Chapter 7: Barcoding, phylogeny and genome structure

    Chapter 8: Biogeography

    Chapter 9: Methods of collecting, examination, preservation and identification

    Chapter 10: Diagnostic characters used for identification

    Chapter 11: Key to the species of Hydroides worldwide

    Chapter 12: Taxonomic account

    Abbreviations of institutions where type material is deposited

    Glossary

    References

    Index

    Biography

    Elena Kupriyanova is a Senior Research Scientist at The Australian Museum, whose research interests are centred on taxonomy, biodiversity, systematics, phylogeny, life history, reproduction, and evolution of marine invertebrates, especially of the polychaete family Serpulidae (calcareous tubeworms).

    Yanan Sun is a research student in the Marine Ecology Group at Macquarie University, Australia.

    Eunice Wong is a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA

    Harry ten Hove is an annelidologist working in the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.