Checklist of the species of Syllidae ( Annelida : Phyllodocida ) recorded in Brazil

This study presents the first checklist focused on the Syllidae species registered in Brazil, based on extensive literature research. Data on geographic distribution in Brazil and worldwide are given herein, in addition to habitat and type material of each species deposited in Brazilian collections. A total of 96 species from 28 genera and four subfamilies have been recorded, that is 13.71% of the species and 37.84% of the genera known worldwide. A key is provided for the species currently known from the Brazilian coast.


Checklist of the species of Syllidae (Annelida: Phyllodocida) recorded in Brazil
.105 Syllids use a variety of reproduction strategies, with different types of eggs incubation and epitoke forms.Asexual reproduction by architomy or schizogamy is also common in the family (Franke, 1999;Ribeiro et al., 2018).However, reproductive characteristics in many genera and species remain unknown (San Martín, 2003;Rouse & Pleijel, 2006).
The first record of a syllid from Brazil, Syllis Savigny in Lamarck, 1818, was registered by F. Müller (1858).Syllis brevicirris Hansen, 1882 and Syllis brasiliensis McIntosh, 1885 are the first two described species of syllids from Brazil, based on material collected by Prof.
Currently, around 150 syllid species were reported for Brazil (Amaral et al., 2013;De Chiara et al., 2017).Most of these species, however, were described from studies in Southeast-ern and Southern Brazil, regions with the highest concentration of specialists.There are also a number of species only reported from theses and dissertations, and many records without voucher deposited in collections.Therefore, a more accurate estimate of the diversity of syllids in Brazil is still a problematic issue.
The current paper presents an extensive compilation based exclusively on taxonomic publications of syllids recorded from Brazil, with most of the species with vouchers in collections from Brazilian museums.

Material and Methods
The checklist herein presented was based exclusively on taxonomic publications.
The Syllidae had been poorly studied in Brazil for many years.However, since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been an advance in the taxonomic knowledge, as a result of the increase in the efforts to study the family caused by the training of specialists, which were absent in Brazil until that time.
According to Amaral et al. (2013), Syllidae is one of the polychaete families with the highest number of taxa registered in the country, reflecting the great diversity of the family.Nonetheless, there are still many gaps in the knowledge of the group, particularly about specific geographic regions and environments, despite recent advances in research and the increasing number of published papers, such as Taxonomic studies about this family have traditionally been restricted to low depths, generally in the intertidal zone, due to the easiness of access and low costs for exploration, with most records from up to ca. 200 m deep.Studies involving deep waters are scarce, being Barroso et al. (2017) a rare exception.Thereby this vast field may be considered a gap in the knowledge about the Syllidae and about polychaetes in general.Several environments (e.g., mangroves and estuaries) are also still poorly studied in Brazil, as well as polychaetes associations with other organisms, such as sponges, algae and corals; on this latter topic, only a few papers have been published until present (Nogueira & San Martín, 2002;Paresque & Nogueira 2014).(Lana et al., 2017).In this scenario, we expect for the near future an even larger increase in new occurrences for the country and also in the description of taxa new to science.Particularly regarding the former, it is possible that refinements in the study of Systematics (e.g., with the usage also of molecular characters for species delineations) may indicate that some species currently recorded in the country, but with slight differences from other populations (such as Brevicirrosyllis cf.mariae and Odontosyllis cf.fulgurans -see Fukuda &Nogueira, 2006 andFukuda et al., 2015), actually represent undescribed species.
Only three species have large records in the Brazilian coast: Haplosyllis spongicola (Rio Grande do Norte to São Paulo), Opisthosyllis brunnea (Paraíba to São Paulo) and Syllis variegata (Pernambuco to São Paulo).The other species have restricted distributions, many of them concentrated on the coasts of Paraíba and Pernambuco, and especially off the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.This, however, probably represents an artifact due to the still poor coverage of taxonomic surveys along the coast of the country as a whole, rather than a real pattern of restricted distributions.Considering the whole extension of theBrazilian coast, the Northern region shows only one species registered, in the coast of Pará; the Northeast region presents 34 species recorded, from Ceará to Bahia; the Southeast region has 76 species registered, off the coasts of Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; and the South region presents 10 species recorded, from the coast of Paraná to Rio Grande do Sul.These results, however, are probably highly skewed, showing a similar pattern in other groups of polychaetes, since the Southeastern/Sourthern regions are best prospected, reflecting the highest concentration of researchers species of Syllidae recorded in Brazil Revista Brasileira de Zoociências 19(3): 104-147.2018

Furthermore
, in terms of research projects involving the Syllidae, the major contributions to the study of the marine benthic biota have also been done in the Southeastern/Sourthern regions -for example, 'REVIZEE/South Score/Benthos', 'BIOTA/FAPESP/Benthic marine biodiversity in the state of São Paulo" and, more recently, 'HABITATS -Environmental heterogeneity in the Campos Basin' and 'AMBES -Environmental heterogeneity in the Espírito Santo Basin and northern region of the Campos Basin'.In the last few years, other regions of the country saw a significant increase in the taxonomic knowledge, due to the capacitation of new taxonomists and the development of new projects and partnerships -such as in the Federal University of Paraíba, located in Northeastern Brazil -leading to a considerable increase in the discovery of new species along that part of the coast (Paresque et al., 2014; Paresque & Nogueira 2014).In this context, the Program Protax, by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development -CNPq, contributed to the training of a new generation of taxonomists.
Rocky shores and algae (Bostrychia sp. and Sargassum sp.) in the intertidal zone.