Multiple evolutionary transitions of reproductive strategies in a phylum of aquatic colonial invertebrates.

Parental care is considered crucial for the enhanced survival of offspring and evolutionary success of many metazoan groups. Most bryozoans incubate their young in brood chambers or intracoelomically. Based on the drastic morphological differences in incubation chambers across members of the order Cheilostomatida (class Gymnolaemata), multiple origins of incubation were predicted in this group. This hypothesis was tested by constructing a molecular phylogeny based on mitogenome data and nuclear rRNA genes 18S and 28S with the most complete sampling of taxa with various incubation devices to date. Ancestral character estimation suggested that distinct types of brood chambers evolved at least 10 times in Cheilostomatida. In Eucratea loricata and Aetea spp. brooding evolved unambiguously from a zygote-spawning ancestral state, as it probably did in Tendra zostericola, Neocheilostomata, and 'Carbasea' indivisa. In two further instances, brooders with different incubation chamber types, skeletal and non-skeletal, formed clades (Scruparia spp., Leiosalpinx australis) and (Catenicula corbulifera (Steginoporella spp. (Labioporella spp., Thalamoporella californica))), each also probably evolved from a zygote-spawning ancestral state. The modular nature of bryozoans probably contributed to the evolution of such a diverse array of embryonic incubation chambers, which included complex constructions made of polymorphic heterozooids, and maternal zooidal invaginations and outgrowths.

New species of Hippopleurifera (Bryozoa, Cheilostomata) from the Miocene Pirabas Formation, Pará state, Brazil.

The Pirabas Formation in Brazil has been studied for many years and a great diversity of animal groups (in particular fishes, molluscs and echinoderms) have been described from there, whereas the Bryozoa have scarcely been mentioned. New samples, collected specifically to focus on bryozoans, have shown that the diversity in this formation is higher than previously thought. Here we describe two new species belonging to the cheilostomate genus Hippopleurifera--H. barbosae sp. nov. and H. confusa sp. nov. Both species were collected at Atalaia Beach, northeastern Pará state, which boasts some of the best marine Cenozoic fossil outcrops in Brazil. After accounting for all described species, plus the two new species and four generic reassignments (new combinations) described herein, some 29 Hippopleurifera species are now known. Most of these are fossils from Europe or the USA, but a handful are known from the Recent Mediterranean, Caribbean and Indo-West Pacific.

Six species of Calyptotheca (Bryozoa, Cheilostomata, Lanceoporidae) from the Gulf of Carpentaria and northern Australia, with description of a new species.

A new diagnosis is presented for Calyptotheca Harmer, 1957 and six species are described from the Gulf of Carpentaria: C. wasinensis (Waters, 1913) (type species), C. australis (Haswell, 1880), C. conica Cook, 1965 (with a redescription of the holotype), C. tenuata Harmer, 1957, C. triquetra (Harmer, 1957) and C. lardil n. sp. These are the first records of Bryozoa from the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the first Australian records for C. wasinensis, C. tenuata and C. triquetra. The limit of distribution of three species is extended east to the Gulf of Carpentaria, from Kenya for C. wasinensis, from China for C. tenuata, and from northwestern Australia for C. conica. The number of tropical Calyptotheca species in Australian territorial waters is increased from seven to eleven.