Document of bibliographic reference 287691

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Diversity of the Monstrilloida (Crustacea: Copepoda)

Abstract

Monstrilloid copepods are protelean parasites of different groups of marine benthic invertebrates. Only their first naupliar, preadult, and adult phases are planktonic. Monstrilloids are currently represented by more than 115 nominal species contained in four genera. Its taxonomic knowledge has been hampered by nomenclatural and descriptive problems derived from their peculiar ontogeny and poor definitions of taxa. One of the most important difficulties is that of matching males to females. The only reliable methods to link the sexes of a species are the confirmation of particular apomorphies shared by both sexes, finding both sexes in the same host or as a pre-copulatory male-female pair in the plankton, or by the use of molecular markers. A general overview of the morphology of the group and its life cycle is provided herein. Recently, upgraded descriptive standards have been established and the relevance of redescribing taxa based on type and museum specimens has been demonstrated. The rate of species description per decade has had several peaks between 1840 and 2010: (1971–1980, 1991–2000, 2001–2010), each related to the activity of a few researchers. An analysis of the world distribution of published records of the Monstrilloida revealed that the Northeast Atlantic is the best studied region (45% of all records), followed by the Northwestern Atlantic (17%); the least surveyed areas include regions of the southern hemisphere (less than 3%). The Northeast Atlantic region harbors the highest number of known species (32 nominal species), followed by the Caribbean Sea/Gulf of Mexico (24), the Mediterranean/Black Sea (19), Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines region (17), Japanese waters (17), and the Brazil-Argentina area (16). Other than these generalized patterns, little can be concluded concerning the biogeography of the group. Many species records are doubtful or improbable, and purportedly cosmopolitan nominal species are being revealed as species complexes yet to be studied.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000295454200026

Bibliographic citation

Suárez-Morales, E. (2011). Diversity of the Monstrilloida (Crustacea: Copepoda). PLoS One 6(8): e22915. https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022915

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true