Abstract
Soft corals collected around Mayotte in 2011 comprised 24 genera and 57 identifiable species of Alcyonacea; two genera and three species were added to the list from a 1997 collection made for a natural products study. When compared with other western Indian Ocean (WIO) data, Mayotte’s alcyonacean fauna is the richest, and the island potentially comprises a regional biodiversity hotspot for this group. Mayotte has the largest barrier reef in the WIO and, considering the oceanography of the Mozambique Channel, this alcyonacean biodiversity may feed into the system and merits conservation.
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Acknowledgements
The fieldwork for this project was funded by Direction de l’Environnement de l’Aménagement et du Logement (DEAL), Mayotte, through the kind offices of Mr. Benjamin Esperance. The subsequent sample analysis and write-up were supported by a South African National Research Foundation Knowledge Interchange and Collaboration grant and the South African Association for Marine Biological Research (MHS), and the Israel Cohen Chair in Environmental Zoology (YB). The sampling expedition was organised by Pareto Ecoconsult under the co-ordination of Dr. Jean-Benoit Nicet. Mr. Alban Jamon provided assistance during the fieldwork on Mayotte and Mr. Alex Shlagman in the curation of the preserved specimens in the Zoological Collections of Tel Aviv University. Dr. Phil Alderslade kindly provided early literature that was difficult to source. We were grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by two anonymous reviewers and the editor, Dr. Bert Hoeksema, which greatly improved the manuscript.
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Communicated by B. W. Hoeksema
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Schleyer, M.H., Benayahu, Y. The soft coral fauna (Octocorallia: Alcyonacea) of Mayotte. Mar Biodiv 48, 1643–1650 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-016-0621-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-016-0621-z