First report on the occurrence of the Palythoa mutuki (Haddon & Shackleton, 1891) (Anthozoa: Sphenopidae: Palythoa) in Jeju Island from Korea

Abstract

As rising global seawater temperature caused by global warming, some zooxantellate species have been found to extend their habitat range to higher latitudes than existing habitats. Palythoa mutuki (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia: Zoantharia) is a zooxanthellate zoanthid species commonly found in shallow subtropical and tropical waters known to live in Guam, Saipan, Japan, Taiwan, New Caledonia and Galapagos. Jeju Island is geographically affected by the Kuroshio warm current, it becomes a place where temperate and subtropical creatures coexist, with a higher diversity which is 51% of marine biota in Korea. Recently, Palythoa sp. population has been discovered from a subtidal area (5-10 m depth) on the southern coast of Jeju Island from Korea. In the present study, we identified the Palythoa sp. to species level using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence. ITS DNA sequence obtained from the Palythoa sp. in this study showed to Palythoa mutuki (Haddon & Shackleton, 1891) reported from Japan, which is the first report of sphenopidae species found in the Korean waters. These records can be seen as evidence that the Jeju Island is changing due to global warming and will be used as the important basic information for climate change research in Korea.