Foreword

Abstract

With the publication of the ABRS Zoological Catalogue to Australian amphipods (Lowry & Stoddart 2003) it became apparent that nearly all of the effort to document the Australian amphipod fauna was concentrated in the temperate southern parts of the country. In tropical Australia, only the monograph of Zeidler (1978) on the pelagic hyperiidean amphipods of Queensland and several short papers on benthic amphipods (K.H. Barnard 1931; Lowry 1981; Berents 1983; Stock 1984; Thomas & Barnard 1990, 1991a, b) specifically targeted the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Other workers included GBR species within broader Australian studies on benthic amphipods (Myers 1988; Lowry & Stoddart 1990, 1992). Since the publication of the catalogue (Lowry & Stoddart 2003), several important monographs: Guerra-Garcia 2006 on the caprellids of Queensland; Peart 2007a, b on the ampithoid genera Ampithoe and Cymadusa and several short papers: Lowry & Azman 2008; and Yerman & Krapp-Schickel 2008 have recorded tropical species. Prior to the beginning of this project there were about 1000 benthic amphipods known from temperate Australia, but less than 90 species known from tropical Australia. This book is therefore the foundation study on the tropical benthic amphipods of Australia. Although it describes many of the amphipods of the Great Barrier Reef, it indicates the richness of species only on the GBR and certainly not the richness of amphipod species in tropical Australian waters. A checklist of the amphipod species known from tropical Australia is given below.