Diversity and zoogeography of marine Tubificidae (Annelida, Oligochaeta) with notes on variation in widespread species

Abstract

The specific and generic diversities of the marine Tubificidae (Annelida, Oligochaeta) of the NE Pacific are compared to those of the NE and NW Atlantic as well as to those of Heron Island, Australia. Diversity in the NE Pacific is relatively high when compared to that of the NE Atlantic. The Tubificidae of the NW Atlantic (limited to the eastern coast of the USA) show two distinct zoogeographic regions: Florida to Cape Hatteras; Cape Hatteras to Massachusetts. Diversity, both in terms of the number of species and number of genera, is approximately the same in these two regions, and is similar to that of both the NE Pacific and Heron Island. Evidence suggests that the widespread marine species, in particular Tubificoides pseudogaster, have a range of morphotypes across their distributions. The apparent wide distributions of these species may be due to a taxonomy unable to resolve the differences between the morphotypes. The tubificid oligochaete fauna of the NE Atlantic appears impoverished compared to the other regions examined. The NE Pacific, NW Atlantic, and Heron Island regions are not dominated by one group of species while the NE Atlantic fauna is dominated by Tubificoides benedeni and Clitellio arenarius.