Inventory of mollusks from the estuary of the Paraíba River in northeastern Brazil

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems of northeastern Brazil have important biodiversity with regard to marine mollusks, which are insufficiently studied. Here we provide an inventory of mollusks from two sites in the estuary of the Paraíba River. Mollusks were collected in 2014 and 2016 on the coast and sandbanks located on the properties of Treze de Maio and Costinha de Santo Antônio. The malacofaunal survey identified 12 families, 20 genera and 21 species of bivalves, 17 families, 19 genera and 20 species of gastropods and one species of cephalopod. Bivalves of the family Veneridae Rafinesque, 1815 were the most representative, with a total of five species. Gastropods of the family Littorinidae Children, 1834 had the greatest species richness. The most abundant species were: Neritina virginea (Linnaeus, 1758), Brachidontes exustus (Linnaeus, 1758), Crassostrea brasiliana (Lamarck, 1819), Cerithium atratum (Born, 1778), Anomalocardia brasiliana (Gmelin, 1791), Parvanachis obesa (C. B. Adams, 1845), Phrontis polygonata (Lamarck, 1822), Littoraria angulifera (Lamarck, 1822), L. flava (King, 1832), Tagelus plebeius (Lightfoot, 1786), Echinolittorina lineolata (d'Orbigny, 1840) and Iphigenia brasiliensis (Lamarck, 1818). The results show that the study area has considerable species richness of Mollusca, requiring environmental monitoring in the region mainly due to the economic importance of some species to the local population.

Some Pycnogonida (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) from the "Paulo Young" Invertebrate Collection (CIPY) of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Brazil

“…The publication of biological information based on material deposited in the CIPY occurred punctually until the year 2000 (Young & Christoffersen 1984;Veloso & Melo 1993;Melo & Veloso 2005). Papers were produced more systematically since 2008, dealing with diverse groups, such as Crustacea (Riul et al 2008;Rodrigues et al 2009), Polychaeta (Santos et al 2008(Santos et al , 2010(Santos et al , 2011(Santos et al , 2014de Assis et al 2007de Assis et al , 2008ade Assis et al ,b, 2012Brito et al 2013), Echinodermata (Gondim et al 2013a(Gondim et al ,b, 2015Prata et al 2012Prata et al , 2014aPrata et al ,b, 2016, and Mollusca (Dias et al 2013;Lima et al 2013Lima et al , 2017aLima & Guimarães 2015;, include inventories of benthic macrofauna (Gondim et al 2011) and biological associations (Lima et al , 2017b. However, most of the available information has not been published in scientific journals, having been cited only in monographies, dissertations, thesis and congress/conference abstracts, which makes access to this information more difficult for the scientific community.…”

Mollusks associated with the Avicennia schaueriana (Magnoliophyta: Acanthaceae) roots of a hypersaline estuary in northeastern Brazil

“…The malacological fauna supported by the roots of A. schaeuriana constitute a range of organisms peculiar to this microhabitat, since some of the species found in this study were not sampled in other studies developed in estuarine regions of the Brazilian Northeast (e.g. Barroso et al, 2013;Lima et al, 2017), highlighting the particularity and importance of A. schaeuriana roots in harboring such species.…”

On the oviposition and egg masses of Conus regius (Neogastropoda: Conidae) from northeastern Brazil

“…The hard substrates undergo a strong weathering process in the region originating sediments composed of sand, quartz and carbonate (Bittencourt 1975). The environmental complexity of Itapuã and other beaches of Salvador offers a variety of micro-habitats and macro-habitats that favor the establishment of diverse communities of invertebrates (Alves & Cerqueira, 2000), especially mollusks, which constitute the second most diversified phylum in the world (Lima et al 2017). …”