Cladoceran Biodiversity in Brazil:

An overview
Lourdes M.A. Elmoor-Loureiro
Universidade Católica de Brasília, Brazil; lourdes.loureiro@catolica.edu.br

Research on Cladocera has increased in the last 20 years in Brazil, resulting

in a great number of data on their occurrence and taxonomy. This study
synthesizes these data and presents an overview on cladoceran biodiversity
in Brazilian freshwaters, based on literature data.

Material and Methods

Brazilian Hydrogeographic Regions (HR) and their data for survey effort, number of reported
species, and number of exclusive species (in parenthesis).

The highest number of species were reported in the Paraná HR (101 spp),
which is also one of the best HRs surveyed. In contrast, the effect of a poor
sampling effort was observed for the Uruguay HR, with only 15 species.
Surprisingly, the Amazon RH, which is proportionally one of the least
surveyed, is the second in number of species (98); moreover, it presents the
highest endemism, with 11 species occurring only in this HR. So, these data
suggest that Amazon cladoceran biodiversity is underestimated and that the
Results and discussion rainforest could act as a barrier for species dispersion. In the other RHs,
there are only up to six exclusive species, suggesting that dispersion among
There are records from all 12 hydrogeographic regions (HR), and 142 taxa them is more frequent.
are considered to occur in Brazil.

Observed and estimated number of species for Brazil

Observed Chao 2 Jackknife 1 Jackknife 2 Bootstrap
142 161,3 ± 10,2 168,4 ± 11,6 179,9 153,4

The rarefaction analysis and

the estimators suggest a A large set of species is truly
potential for higher richness of tropical, not occurring in
Cladocera in Brazil. latitudes above 23.5°S; some of
them are endemic to a particular
RH, but others are widespread
Rarefaction curve, using RHs as samples
taxa.

Despite the recent advances in A smaller number of species is

taxonomy, about 20% of the species subtropical.
recorded in Brazil still need revision.
About 22% of the species occur in In addition, few species are
nine or more RHs, and about 38% distributed in the intermediate
are restricted to one or two RHs. zone (13°-25° S).
Percentage of species present in
one or more RH

Some of the endemic species are found in special habitats, such as wet leaf
litter, ultraoligotrophic ponds, and rock pools, suggesting potential for hidden
biodiversity.

Species and their typical habitat. A.
Monospilus macroerosus, leaf litter;
B. Ephemeroporus quasimodo,
ultraoligotrophic pond; C. Alona
elisae, rock pool.
Conclusion
Bearing in mind the impossibility of checking all species identification
obtained from literature, the lack of records for wide areas, and the
specificity of habitat of some species, the data presented here could not be
considered conclusive. Nevertheless, they could be useful in directing
future research efforts.