Dinoflagellates in tropical estuarine waters from the Maraú River, Camamu Bay, northeastern Brazil

Check List 15(5): 951-963, doi: 10.15560/15.5.951

Caio Ceza da Silva Nunes^‡, Sylvia Maria Moreira Susini-Ribeiro^‡, Kaoli Pereira Cavalcante^§

‡ Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Brazil§ Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú, Sobral, Brazil

Corresponding author: Caio Ceza da Silva Nunes ( caiobio08@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Luciane Fontana da Silva

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Nunes CCS, Susini-Ribeiro SMM, Cavalcante KP (2019) Dinoflagellates in tropical estuarine waters from the Maraú River, Camamu Bay, northeastern Brazil. Check List 15(5): 951-963. https://doi.org/10.15560/15.5.951

Abstract

Dinoflagellates display great diversity in tropical regions and play an important role in the complex microbial food webs of marine and brackish environments. The goal of this study is to identify planktonic dinoflagellates and their distribution in the estuary of the Maraú River, Camamu Bay, state of Bahia, in a region with increasing use of shellfish farming. Samples were carried out monthly from August 2006 to July 2007 at four stations along the estuary. Plankton was sampled with a 20 μm mesh net. We identified 20 dinoflagellate species. The greatest species richness was observed in the genera Protoperidinium (five spp.), Tripos (four spp.), and Prorocentrum (three spp.). Based on literature, six species were classified as potentially harmful: Akashiwo sanguinea, Dinophysis caudata, Gonyaulax spinifera, Prorocentrum micans, Scrippsiella cf. acuminata, and Tripos furca. Protoperidinium venustum was recorded for the first time in coastal waters of Bahia.

Keywords

Brackish water, Dinophyta, distribution, potentially harmful species, taxonomy