Occurrence of Acanthistius brasilianus (Cuvier, 1828) in Uruguayan waters (3545¢S): when poor taxonomy means poor ecological knowledge

ALEJO J. IRIGOYEN; YAMANDU MARIN; ALFREDO CARVALHO-FILHO

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ANGEWANDTE ICHTHYOLOGIE

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2010 vol. 26 p. 600 - 601

0175-8659

Acanthistius brasilianus is an uncommon species distributed in Brazilian waters from Bahia to Sao Paulo (15–23S), on rocky bottoms at depths of 15–60 m (Carvalho-Filho, 1999; Irigoyen et al., 2008). We report here on the presence of A. brasilianus as a common rocky reef species in Uruguay (3545¢S), 1300 km south of its previously recorded limit of distribution. This information arises after a taxonomic misidentification was resolved for two species of Acanthistius (Gill, 1862) described for the Southwest Atlantic (Irigoyen et al., 2008): Acanthistius brasilianus (Cuvier and Valenciennes, 1828) based on two specimens collected off Brazil, and Acanthistius patachonicus (Jenyns, 1842) based on three specimens collected by Darwin off Argentina (Fig. 1). In 1974, A. patachonicus was considered to be a synonym of A. brasilianus up to 2008 (De Mahieu and Capezzani, 1974; Irigoyen et al., 2008). During this period, a great deal of scientific work on A. patachonicus was mistakenly publicized as A. brasilianus, the former being one of the most common reef fish species from Argentina and with a high commercial importance. The synonyms resulted in erroneous distributional charts and other information, for example in the widely-used database FISHBASE http://www.fishbase.com) (e.g. Ciechomski and Casia, 1976; San Roma´ n, 1980; DellArciprete et al., 1987; Cousseau and Perrotta, 2000; Irigoyen and Venerus, 2008). Once the taxonomic status as a separate species was resolved, Uruguayan ichthyologists distinguished the A. brasilianus in data bases from the A. patachonicus, which were recorded as different phenotypes of  groupers. Finally, this work shows how the poor taxonomy of species can undermine ecological knowledge: A. brasilianus remained an almost unknown species for many years until the taxonomy status was resolved and the confusing and erroneous information was finally corrected, with the otherwise obvious negative consequences for management and conservation.