A key to the identification of agglutinant and monothalamous foraminifera from Brazilian mangroves

Abstract

A key to the identification of agglutinant and monothalamous foraminifera from Brazilian mangroves Identification keys are essential tools to guarantee higher precision during the taxonomic work. However, such keys are rare for foraminifera and often encompass a restrict group of species from a given geographic region. Thus, the taxonomic identification process usually occurs by visual comparison and by verifying the description of morphological attributes, which requires the previous knowledge of the species before identification. The use of an identification key seeks to help in this crucial step and contribute to the best taxonomic precision, which errors may propagate in the subsequent analyses that are supported by estimations on species richness and abundances. Moreover, it constitutes an extra tool to assist in the training of new researchers. This paper brings an identification key for agglutinant and monothalamous foraminifera from Brazilian mangroves, considering 50 genera and 91 species.