Global panorama of studies about freshwater oligochaetes: main trends and gaps

Luciana Falci Theza Rodrigues,Roberto Da Gama Alves

doi:10.11606/1807-0205/2018.58.38

Luciana Falci Theza Rodrigues, Roberto Da Gama Alves

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.11606/1807-0205/2018.58.38

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Abstract

Freshwater oligochaetes have been studied over the years in a wide range of habitats around the world. To analyse the data published about freshwater oligochaetes in the 31 year period between 1985 and 2015, we searched for documents in the ISI Web of Science, Scopus and SciELO databases. A total of 979 works were evaluated from 184 periodicals. The United States is the country with the most publications about aquatic oligochaetes, followed by France, Germany and Italy. Works related to the ecology and ecotoxicology of these organisms are most abundant. Studies carried out in the laboratory are most frequent, consisting of investigations involving bioassays, morphology, genetics and molecular biology. The results also show that spring, cave water bodies and swamps have been studied less than any other aquatic habitat and that countries of the Southern Hemisphere are under-represented in the studies of aquatic oligochaetes. Hence, there is a need for increased efforts to fill in gaps in the knowledge about these oligochaetes.

Highlights

Oligochaetes in freshwater ecosystems are composed of over 1,100 known species (Martin et al, 2008)
We found 2,325 results for publications containing the keywords in their titles
Of all the publications found referring to freshwater oligochaetes, 33 came from consulting SciELO, 621 from Scopus and 586 from Web of Science (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Oligochaetes in freshwater ecosystems are composed of over 1,100 known species (Martin et al, 2008) Despite their high richness and representation in various aquatic habitats (streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs), the oligochaetes have not received proper attention in hydrobiology studies (Sambugar, 2007). Their identification in the majority of publications is at a relatively unrefined taxonomic level, such as class or family, causing a gap in knowledge about the species level. (as of 2000), works about ecology such as Alves & Lucca (2000), Alves et al (2006, 2008), Gorni & Alves (2006, 2008a,b, 2012, 2014), Behrend et al (2009, 2012), Martins & Alves

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