Variation of shell ornamentation with latitude and water depth-A case study using living brachiopods.

As a potential anti-predatory defensive structure, the shell ornamentation of marine calcifiers is usually used to understand the macro coevolution of the interactions between predators and preys. Marine calcifiers' shell ornamentation complexity is generally believed to vary negatively with latitude and water depth. In this paper, we explored the association between shell ornamentation and latitude/bathymetry using the latest global database of living brachiopods.

Global biogeography of living brachiopods: Bioregionalization patterns and possible controls.

The global distribution patterns of 14918 geo-referenced occurrences from 394 living brachiopod species were mapped in 5° grid cells, which enabled the visualization and delineation of distinct bioregions and biodiversity hotspots. Further investigation using cluster and network analyses allowed us to propose the first systematically and quantitatively recognized global bioregionalization framework for living brachiopods, consisting of five bioregions and thirteen bioprovinces. No single environmental or ecological variable is accountable for the newly proposed global bioregionalization patterns of living brachiopods.

Rediscovery of Terebratulina austroamericana Zezina, 1981 (Brachiopoda: Cancellothyrididae) from off northern Chile.

Phylum Brachiopoda, shelled marine invertebrates, is currently represented by about 400 extant species; a tiny fraction of the ca. 30,000 described fossil species (Emig et al. 2013; Bitner 2014; Nauendorf et al.

Checklist of recent brachiopod species collected during the Terrasses and Exbodi cruises in the New Caledonian region, SW Pacific.

Twenty species belonging to 16 genera, i.e. Neoancistrocrania, Novocrania, Basiliola, Basiliolella, Ebiscothyris, Stenosarina, Kanakythyris, Xenobrochus, Terebratulina, Eucalathis, Fallax, Frenulina, Septicollarina, Campages, Annuloplatidia, and Thecidellina have been identified in the material collected during the Terrasses and Exbodi cruises in the New Caledonian region, SW Pacific.

New records of Recent Brachiopoda from the Red Sea with a description of a new species .

A revised checklist of 14 Recent brachiopod species from Egypt and the Sudan in the Red Sea has been compiled. New records of Minutella minuta (Cooper), Thecidellina blochmanni Dall and Argyrotheca somaliensis Cooper are described and a new species Argyrotheca cooperi is erected for specimens with few but very strong costae. The new records support earlier suggestions that the affinities of the Red Sea brachiopod fauna are with those of the Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific areas.

New paedomorphic brachiopods from the abyssal zone of the north-eastern Pacific Ocean.

New Recent very small but sexually mature brachiopods have been found at abyssal depths (4580-4850 m) in the Clarion- Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean. They are characterized by simple (under-developed, juvenile) morphological features, which are interpreted here as paedomorphic, indicating the importance of heterochrony in the evolution of deep-sea brachiopods. We have described these brachiopods as representing two new genera and species, i.