Census of the Medusozoa, Ceriantharia and Ctenophora from South America.

OLIVEIRA O.; GENZANO G. N.; ET ALLLI.

Mar del Plata

Simposio; 3rd Jellyfish Blooms Symposium; 2010

INIDEP

Census of the Medusozoa, Ceriantharia and Ctenophora from South America Otto M. P. Oliveira1, Enilma M. Araujo2, Patricia Ayon3, Amancay A. Cepeda4, Horia Galea5, Gabriel Genzano2, Maria Angélica Haddad6, Hermes W. Mianzan7, Alvaro E. Migotto1, Thais P. Miranda1, Pablo C. Montecinos8, Andre C. Morandini1, Renato M. Nagata1, Miodeli Nogueira Jr6, Javier A. D. Quiñones3, Sergio Palma8, Carolina Rodriguez2, Sergio N. Stampar1, Agustín Schiariti7, Valquiria Tronolone1, Antonio C. Marques1 1 Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil 2 Estación Costera Nágera, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina 3 Instituto del Mar del Perú, Perú 4 Proyecto de Conservación de Aguas y Tierras, Colombia 5 Muzeul Naţional de Istorie Natural㠓Grigore Antipa”, România 6 Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brasil 7 Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Pesquero, Argentina  8 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile Email: ottompo@usp.br The South American fauna of ctenophores, cerianthids, jellyfishes, hydroids and their allies have been studied punctually by several research groups and isolated researchers from the coastal countries. This is the first time these researchers join together to work on a realistic census of the Medusozoa, Ceriantharia and Ctenophora species from all the wide marine area of South America, including the coast lines and the marine areas of each country. The aims of this census are to standardize the nomenclature, to better understand the distribution patterns of the species in a long scale range and also to detect biological questions that can potentially be solved if studied by two or more groups of researchers from different countries. For this data compilation, all information available, including gray literature, were consulted. New data were also included by each research group. After all, we registered a total of 679 species of Medusozoa, fifteen Ceriantharia and nineteen Ctenophora. In general, South American fauna represents about 18% of the world fauna of medusozoans, 15% of the cerianthids and 16% of the ctenophores. Siphonophores are the best represented group, with the occurrence of about 60% of the world diversity in South American waters. We found some gaps in the faunistic knowledge of the region, especially in areas without a research tradition on these biological groups. Our census provides an important background for future faunistic works and also feeds a database for a long scale endemicity analysis, to be performed in the future.