Study on Leptoconchus species (Gastropoda, Coralliophilidae) infesting Fungiidae (Anthozoa : Scleractinia). 1. Presence of nine Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) based on anatomical and ecological characters

This paper deals with the Leptoconchus infesting Fungiidae. A dichotomous key based on five characters, and sustained by a multivariate analysis (canonical discriminant analysis) based on I I characters allows clear separation into nine Leptoconchus Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs). The nine OTUs are provisionally labelled OTU1, OTU2,..., OTU9. A single Leptoconchus OTU infests several fungiid species whereas a single fungiid species is never infested by different Leptoconchus OTUs. Some Leptoconchus OTUs infest closely related coral species, whereas other infest distantly related species.