Biodiversity and distribution of corals in Chile

Abstract

The present review investigates our current knowledge of the richness and distribution of coral species inhabiting diverse habitats in Chilean coastal and marine waters, including the oceanic islands. Information, such as the spatial-temporal coverage, taxonomic resolution, and bathymetry of species, was extracted from published articles, geodatabases, and unpublished data. Our analyses of these data highlight major gaps in knowledge on corals in Chile, indicating this region remains poorly studied. The results show that the previous studies focused mostly on coastal and shallow-water habitats, with the continental slope, oceanic islands, and seamounts remaining mainly unexplored. Furthermore, high coral species richness was observed in the Magellanic Province compared with the northern Intermediate Area and Peruvian Province, and the temporal distribution of occurrence records was discontinuous, with peaks observed for the years 1876–1877, 1960–1967, and 2001–2016. We also report a new location and an extension of the known geographic distribution for Bathycyathus chilensis. Despite the progress in scientific knowledge achieved in the last decades, coral research still suffers from significant knowledge gaps, especially of the deep-sea benthic biodiversity in Chile. Further exploration of Chilean coastal and marine waters is therefore necessary to increase the knowledge of the coral biodiversity of this vast region.