The scleractinian species — a holistic approach

摘要

The widely recognized difficulty in defining the scleractinian species may be attributed to two factors: the objective nature of these elusive organisms, and the subjective impact of us as researchers. Shifts in areas of nomenclature, ethics and taxonomy can reduce our negative impact on the problem and require introspection on the personal, inter-colleague and international levels. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature offers a tool for regulating nomenclature procedures, but it has been troublingly ignored recently. Ethical issues require appeals to our conscience, recognition of the necessity of publishing following peer review and use of quality tests. Taxonomy can be facilitated by constantly updated species notions and approaches. The scleractinian species concept followed the evolution of the species notion in general and the enrichment of knowledge about these corals. The past two decades dramatically changed our understanding of scleractinians with discoveries concerning such life history aspects as long generation times and propagation through fragmentation, synchronous multispecific spawning, hybridization, ocean currents, symbiosis and life in aquaria. A holistic approach to defining scleractinian species requires recognition of the implication of life history traits and usage of three types of criteria – morphological, molecular and reproductive – as well as the cooperation of specialists. Scleractinian species taxonomy can benefit considerably from the bridging of paleontological and neontological techniques. Suggestions for future strategies in scleractinian species taxonomy are offered.