Estuaries and Gelatinous zooplankton: New records of Ctenophora from the Tropical Coast of Brazil (~3-11°S)

Abstract

The fauna of ctenophores in the coastal zone of tropical Southwestern Atlantic is virtually unknown. Mnemiopsis leidyi and Beroe ovata are important components of pelagic communities as top predators, which are occasionally abundant and widely distributed on coastal regions of the western Atlantic. However, in this region most of the records are in subtropical areas of SW Atlantic, North Atlantic or in the Caribbean region. In this paper we present information on the occurrence of both species in ten tropical estuaries, located between 3 and 11°S, covering more than 1,000 km of coastal areas. The records were made through visual observation, manual collections (with the aid of a 1 mm mesh size net) and subsurface and bottom zooplankton hauls (200, 300 and 500 μm mesh size). We recorded the occurrence of ctenophores in distinct shallow-water estuaries, including hypersaline and highly polluted environments. These new occurrences expand our knowledge on the distribution of the fauna of ctenophores, as well as on the need to carry out taxonomic works and studies that investigate the influence of environmental variables over the population structure and blooms of these species