海葵目隶属于刺胞动物门珊瑚虫纲，是最原始的后生动物类群之一，在后生动物起源与演化研究、海洋底栖生物群落调查和海洋活性物质开发等方面具有独特作用。但由于海葵的分类鉴定非常困难，我国有关海葵目的分类研究明显不足且存在种种误识。申请人前期的初步研究发现“黄海海葵目物种多样性远高于东海”，这与通常认识的海洋生物种数在中国海域由北向南递增的分布格局是相悖的。该结果到底是海葵多样性格局的真实反映还是由于调查研究不足所致，目前尚无充足的证据给予判定。本研究拟针对这一问题，基于对中国科学院海洋生物标本馆丰富的馆藏标本和大量新采集标本的鉴定分析，采用形态学与分子系统学相结合的方法，厘清黄东海海葵疑难种，查证黄海和东海海葵目物种多样性的差异；并结合其它研究数据，深入分析差异产生的原因，明确黄东海海葵区系的性质与特点。该研究将大大提高中国的海葵分类学水平，并为中国海洋生物的多样性与动物地理学研究提供重要资料。

Sea anemones (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Actiniaria) are one of the most primitive metazoans, and have important status in study of the origin and evolution of metazoa, invastigation of marine benthos and exploitation of marine active substances. However, as identification and classification of sea anemones are very difficult, the knowledge of Chinese actiniarians is scant and inaccurate. The proposer’s early study indicates that species diversity of the order Actiniaria in the Yellow Sea is much higher than that of the East China Sea, which is contrary to the distribution pattern that species number of the China seas increases from the north to the south. But there is no adequate argumentation to verify whether the result is reflection of the real actiniarian distribution pattern or is just caused by undersampling. To clarify actiniarian diversity and their causes of the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, the project will analyze quantity of sea anemone specimens deposited in Marine Biology Museusm, Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as new collected specimens, and combine morphological taxonomy with molecular phylogenetics to clarify confused species. The study will highly improve the level of actiniarian taxonomy in China, and provide important data for biodiversity and zoogeography of Chinese marine organisms.