I am a PhD candidate from the Laboratório de Evolução Marinha (Laboratory of Marine Evolution), Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, and I am visiting the Hydrozoa Collection of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, under supervision of Dr. Allen G. Collins, for nine months. My visit is being funded by the São Paulo government’s FAPESP BEPE program.
My doctoral dissertation is entitled “Faunistics and areas of endemism of benthic hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from Patagonia and Antarctica”, and the purpose of my visit is to check the taxonomical status of the species of benthic hydroids (except hydrocorals) and to document their geographical records from Patagonia and Antarctica.
Biogeographic studies focusing on inferences of areas of endemism for the marine realm are uncommon and have a number of challenges. One of the main difficulties is the reliability of species identifications, which underlie the determination of the actual geographical presence points of a taxon. Some taxa of benthic hydroids, such as Campanulariidae and Sertulariidae, have a complicated taxonomy and consequently a high number of specific names related to one or few morphologies. While I am here, I will focus my taxonomical investigation on the morphometry of these groups, mainly on the genus Sertularella and Symplectoscyphus.
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