Marine Biodiversity in the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of South America: Knowledge and Gaps.

MILOSLAVICH, P; KLEIN, E; CASTILLO, J ; DÍAZ, J M; HERNÁNDEZ, C; BIGATTI, G; CAMPOS, L; ARTIGAS, F; PENCHASZADEH, P; NEILL, P; CARRANZA, A; RETANA, M; RETANA, M; LEWIS, M; YORIO, P.; PIRIZ, M.L.; RODRIGUEZ, D; YONESHIGUE-VALENTIN, Y; GAMBOA , L.A.P.; MARTÍN, A.

PLOS ONE

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Año: 2011 vol. 6 p. 1 - 43

1932-6203

The marine areas of South America (SA) include almost30,000 km of coastline and encompass three different oceanicdomains—the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Atlantic—ranging in latitude from 12uN to 55uS. The 10 countries thatborder these coasts have different research capabilities andtaxonomic traditions that affect taxonomic knowledge. Thispaper analyzes the status of knowledge of marine biodiversity infive subregions along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of SouthAmerica (SA): the Tropical East Pacific, the Humboldt Current,the Patagonian Shelf, the Brazilian Shelves, and the TropicalWest Atlantic, and it provides a review of ecosystem threats andregional marine conservation strategies. South American marinebiodiversity is least well known in the tropical subregions (withthe exception of Costa Rica and Panama). Differences in totalbiodiversity were observed between the Atlantic and Pacificoceans at the same latitude. In the north of the continent, theTropical East Pacific is richer in species than the Tropical WestAtlantic, however, when standardized by coastal length, there isvery little difference among them. In the south, the HumboldtCurrent system is much richer than the Patagonian Shelf. Ananalysis of endemism shows that 75% of the species are reportedwithin only one of the SA regions, while about 22% of thespecies of SA are not reported elsewhere in the world. Nationaland regional initiatives focusing on new exploration, especiallyto unknown areas and ecosystems, as well as collaborationamong countries are fundamental to achieving the goal ofcompleting inventories of species diversity and distribution.These inventories will allow accurate interpretation of thebiogeography of its two oceanic coasts and latitudinal trends,and will also provide relevant information for science basedpolicies.