Contributions to Zoology 88 (2019) 297-349 CTOZ brill.com/ctoz A review of Caribbean Copepoda associated with reef-dwelling cnidarians, echinoderms and sponges Oksana A. Korzhavina Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Bert W. Hoeksema Taxonomy and Systematics Group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Viatcheslav N. Ivanenko Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Taxonomy and Systematics Group, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
[email protected] Abstract This review of copepod crustaceans associated with reef-dwelling cnidarians, sponges and echinoderms of the Greater Caribbean is based on published records, systematically arranged by the classification of symbiotic copepods and their hosts, sampling sites, coordinates, depth and date of sampling, litera- ture sources, and three recent surveys (Cuba, St. Eustatius in the Eastern Caribbean and Curaçao in the Southern Caribbean). This resulted in totals of 532 records of 115 species of symbiotic copepods (47 gen- era, 17 families, three orders) hosted by 80 species of invertebrates, representing scleractinians (47%), octocorals (9%), echinoderms (3%), and sponges (1%). Among ten Caribbean ecoregions, the Greater Antilles (with 64 species of symbiotic copepods) as well as the Southern and Eastern Caribbean (with 46 and 17 species of copepods, respectively) are the most studied and best represented, whereas only six species of copepods are known from Bermuda, one from Southwestern Caribbean and none from the Gulf of Mexico. The absence of poecilostomatoid copepods (Anchimolgidae, Rhynchomolgidae and Xarifidae) on Caribbean stony corals as noted by Stock (1988) is confirmed.