https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Index ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Repository/uon:51662 Wed 13 Sep 2023 10:00:39 AEST ]]> https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Repository/uon:35989 Thu 23 Jan 2020 11:40:14 AEDT ]]> https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Repository/uon:48176 Sat 11 Mar 2023 12:23:01 AEDT ]]> https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Repository/uon:37668 Dendronephthya australis, with its limited distribution along the central New South Wales (NSW) coastline, forms a habitat within the benthic estuarine environment that supports commercially significant and protected marine species. However, the functional role of the soft coral within this system is unknown. Organisms from primary producers through to secondary consumers were sampled from soft coral and sponge habitats inside the Port Stephens estuary, NSW, Australia in 2014. A food web model of the benthic habitat, created using stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen, was used to describe the functional role of the soft coral in comparison to sponges, another important habitat for commercially significant and protected marine species. Primary consumers accessed a range of benthic and pelagic energy sources; however, secondary consumers were almost entirely dependent on pelagic energy sources. Soft coral and sponges accessed different primary sources for their energy requirements. There was no evidence that D. australis was used as a direct food source by consumers other than nudibranchs. In contrast, sponges were trophically linked with secondary consumers and are likely to play a direct role in pelagic energy transfer. Amphipods collected from the branches of D. australis were identified as major prey components in the diet of protected syngnathids, suggesting that while the soft coral functions as critical habitat, it is indirectly linked to higher trophic levels.]]> Fri 25 Jun 2021 13:34:15 AEST ]]> https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/ /manager/Repository/uon:40139 Hippocampus nalu sp. nov., is herein described on the basis of two specimens, 18.9–22 mm SL, collected from flat sandy coral reef at 14–17 meters depth from Sodwana Bay, South Africa. The new taxon shares morphological synapomorphies with the previously described central Indo-Pacific pygmy seahorses, H. colemani, H. japapigu, H. pontohi, and H. satomiae, and H. waleananus, including diminutive size, twelve trunk rings, prominent cleithral ring and supracleithrum, spines on the fifth and twelfth superior and lateral trunk ridges, respectively, and prominent wing-like protrusions present on the first and/or second superior trunk rings posterior to the head. Hippocampus nalu sp. nov. is primarily distinguished from its pygmy seahorse congeners by highly distinct spine morphology along the anterior segments of the superior trunk ridge. Comparative molecular analysis reveals that the new species demonstrates significant genetic divergence in the mitochondrial COI gene from the morphologically similar H. japapigu and H. pontohi (estimated uncorrected p-distances of 16.3% and 15.2%, respectively). Hippocampus nalu sp. nov. represents the eighth member of the pygmy seahorse clade to be described from the Indo-Pacific, the first confirmed record from the African continent and the Indian Ocean, and an extension of more than 8000 km beyond the previously known range of pygmy seahorses from the Central and Western Indo-Pacific.]]> Fri 15 Jul 2022 09:57:22 AEST ]]>