10.5061/DRYAD.N14PH
Mooney, Christopher J.
James Cook University
Kingsford, Michael J.
James Cook University
Data from: Statolith morphometrics can discriminate among taxa of cubozoan
jellyfishes
Dryad
dataset
2017
box jellyfish
Tripedalia cystophora
Chiropsella bart
Cubozoa
Carybdea xaymacana
Carukia barnesi
statolith
Carybdea rastonii
Tripedalia binata
Alatina moseri
Malo maxima
Copula sivickisi
Chiropsella bronzie
Morbakka fenneri
Elliptical Fourier Analysis
Chironex fleckeri
2017-05-06T00:00:00Z
2017-05-06T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155719
737383 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Identification of potentially harmful cubomedusae is difficult due to
their gelatinous nature. The only hard structure of medusae, the
statolith, has the potential to provide robust measurements for
morphometric analysis. Traditional morphometric length to width ratios (L:
W) and modern morphometric Elliptical Fourier Analysis (EFA) were applied
to proximal, oral and lateral statolith faces of 12 cubozoan species. EFA
outperformed L: W as L: W did not account for the curvature of the
statolith. Best discrimination was achieved with Canonical Discriminant
Analysis (CDA) when analysing proximal + oral + lateral statolith faces in
combination. Normalised Elliptical Fourier (NEF) coefficients classified
98% of samples to their correct species and 94% to family group. Statolith
shape agreed with currently accepted cubozoan taxonomy. This has potential
to assist in identifying levels of risk and stock structure of populations
in areas where box jellyfish envenomations are a concern as the severity
of envenomation is family dependent. We have only studied 12 (27%) of the
45 currently accepted cubomedusae, but analyses demonstrated that
statolith shape is an effective taxonomic discriminator within the Class.
Raw data for cubozoan statolith morphometricsThese are the raw data for
Length: Width measurements and Normalised Elliptical Fourier coefficients
resulting from analyses conducted for "Statolith morphometrics can
discriminate among taxa of cubozoan jellyfishes". Morphometric
analyses were conducted on statolith silhouettes in R using scripts
detailed in the manuscript.
Australia