Abstract
The dispersal of marine organisms can be restricted by a set of isolation mechanisms including hard barriers or hydrological features. In the Western Atlantic Ocean, the Amazon River discharge has been shown to act as a biogeographical barrier responsible for the differences in reef fish communities between Caribbean Sea and Northeast Brazil continental shelves. Here, we compare the diversity of all Animalia phyla from biogeographic ecoregions along the Tropical Western Atlantic continental shelf to test the hypothesis that the Amazon River plume spatially structures species diversity. For that, we used beta diversity estimators and multivariate ecological analysis on a database of species occurrence of the whole animal kingdom including 175,477 occurrences of 8,375 species from six ecoregions along the Western Tropical Atlantic. Results of the whole animal kingdom and the richest phyla showed that the Caribbean Sea and Tropical Brazil ecoregions are isolated by the Amazon River Plume, broadening and confirming the hypothesis that it acts as a soft barrier to animal dispersal in the Western Tropical Atlantic. Species sharing is larger northwestwards, in direction of the Caribbean than the opposite direction. Beyond species isolation due to local characteristics such as low salinity and high turbidity, our results suggest the dominant northwestward currents probably play a major role in animal dispersion: it enhances the flux of larvae and other planktonic organisms with reduced mobility from Brazil to Caribbean and hinders their contrary movement. Thus, the Amazon area is a strong barrier for taxa with reduced dispersal capacity, while species of pelagic taxa with active swimming may transpose it more easily.
Highlights
The dispersal of marine organisms can be restricted by a set of isolation mechanisms including hard barriers or hydrological features
A total of 175,477 occurrences of 8375 animal species were recorded among the six ecoregions in the OBIS database (Table 1, 2, supplementary Table S1)
Since data published through OBIS must come from credible, authoritative sources and pass through a series of technical controls and reviews[29], the first drawback is likely reduced
Summary
The dispersal of marine organisms can be restricted by a set of isolation mechanisms including hard barriers or hydrological features. Results of the whole animal kingdom and the richest phyla showed that the Caribbean Sea and Tropical Brazil ecoregions are isolated by the Amazon River. Beyond species isolation due to local characteristics such as low salinity and high turbidity, our results suggest the dominant northwestward currents probably play a major role in animal dispersion: it enhances the flux of larvae and other planktonic organisms with reduced mobility from Brazil to Caribbean and hinders their contrary movement. A set of isolating mechanisms can restrict the dispersal of marine organisms Hard barriers such as landmasses are the most evident, physically splitting marine habitats[2]. Large distances over the open ocean may restrict connectivity and the exchange of species almost like physical hard barriers, as observed in the isolation of the Indo-Pacific and East Pacific r ealms[2], and in differences in communities from both sides of the Atlantic O
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