Marine Annelida of India: taxonomy and status evaluation and an updated checklist

• Main Authors: Sanitha K. Sivadas, Russell Carvalho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society 2020-09-01
• Series: Journal of Threatened Taxa
• Subjects: annelids; cosmopolitan; echiura; errantia; fauvel; sedentaria; sipuncula
• Online Access: https://www.threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/article/view/5357
• ISSN: 0974-7893; 0974-7907

We present an updated checklist of marine annelids from the Indian subcontinent.  Records of annelid species were obtained from published and grey literatures and online databases.  Our review of annelid publications was restricted to the Indian continental shelf region.  This paper also discusses the taxonomic status of marine annelid species recorded from this region and problems that impede its research.  The updated list comprises of 727 species belonging to 334 genera and 72 families.  A total of 152 species have their type locality in India including 88 species that are endemic to the region.  The current checklist indicates that 25% (183 species) of the records are questionable and require further examination.  Our results highlight that marine annelid richness of the Indian sub-continent is underestimated with many of the native undescribed species being most likely concealed under ‘erroneous’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ records.  With a combination of factors that include a lack of experts, funding, and failure to update regional literature has resulted in an incomplete state of knowledge for the marine annelid biodiversity from this region.  Therefore, there is an urgent need for extensive and intensive sampling to discover new species, conduct detailed re-examinations of doubtful records and, collaborate within the local and international institutes and organizations to improve the regional biodiversity studies.