Bryaninops

Abstract: Bryaninops, Gobiodon, Paragobiodon and Pleurosicya are the most abundant genera of coral-associated gobies. These genera are adapted to live among coral, while other small reef gobies (e.g., the genus Eviota) show no obligate association with this living substrate. Thirteen coral-associated species and two Eviota species were sampled from different regions of the Red Sea, along with four populations/species of Gobiodon from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. A molecular phylogenetic analysis was performed using partial sequences of 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA and cytochrome b mitochondrial genes, 1,199 base pairs in total. Several clades were consistently resolved in neighbor joining-, maximum parsimony-, maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses. While each of the four genera Gobiodon, Paragobiodon, Bryaninops and Pleurosicya proved to be monophyletic, their relative position in the phylogeny did not support an emergence of coral-associated gobiids as a monophyletic assemblage. Instead, two separate monophyletic sub-groups were discovered, the first comprising Gobiodon and Paragobiodon, and the second Bryaninops and Pleurosicya. Our molecular phylogenetic examinations also revealed one unassigned species of Gobiodon from the Maldives as a distinct species and confirmed three putative and yet unassigned species from the Red Sea. Moreover, the uniformly black colored species of Gobiodon are not monophyletic but have evolved independently within two distinct species groups. Genetic distances were large in particular within Pleurosicya and Eviota. Estimated divergence times suggest that coral-associated gobies have diversified in parallel to their preferred host corals. In particular, divergence times of Gobiodon species closely match those estimated for their typical host coral genus Acropora.

Abstract: The tropical Indo-Pacific coral reef goby genera Luposicya Smith and Pleurosicya Weber are reviewed. Luposicya is represented by a single species, L. lupus, which is redescribed here. Pleurosicya is represented by 16 species of which eight (P. annandalei Horne ll and Fowler, P. bilobata (Koumans), P. boldinghi Weber, P. labiata (Weber), P. micheli Fourmanoir, P. mossambica Smith, P. muscantm (Jordan and Seale) and P. prognatha Goren) were previously known and are redescribed here. Eight species of Pleurosicya are described as new (P. australis, P. carolinensis, P. coerulea, P. elongata , P. fringilla, P. spongicola, P. occidental is and P. plicata spp nov.). The species of the genus can be distinguished from established tax a by a combination of characters which may include the amount of scalation, pectoral ray counts, extent of gill opening, jaw and tongue structure, tooth shape and arrangement, colour pattern, preferred host organism and specificity, and proportions of the head and body. All Pleurosicya species are commensal on a variety of invertebrates and plants, particularly sponges, corals, soft corals, gorgonians, seagrasses and algae, and several species are host specific. A key is given to the species of Pleurosicya and to differentiate the genus from allied genera (Bryaninops, Lobulogobius, Luposicya and Phyllogohius).

Abstract: Three species of the gobiid fish genus Bryaninops were previously known for the Red Sea: B natans, B ridens, and B yongei Two new species are described, B discus, similar to B loki, differing in coloration and in having dish-like insteadof cup-like pelvic fins in adults; and B spongicolus, closely related to B dianneae from Fiji, distinct in having shorterpelvic fins, a rounded instead of truncate caudal fin, and differences in life color Bryaninops loki and B tigris are reportedas first records for the Red Sea, the former from a specimen from Sudan and an underwater photo from the Sinai Peninsula, the latter from an underwater photo taken off Egypt