Marine Bivalves from the Argentine Coast and Continental Shelf: Species Diversity and Assessment of the Historical Knowledge

Abstract

Bivalves are one of the most abundant groups of invertebrates in many benthic communities. From 1817 to date, numerous contributions have dealt with the Argentine fauna of marine bivalves. Despite this, at present, there is no a text summarizing the currently available information on this group in Argentine waters. The present contribution aims to provide a synthesis of the current state of knowledge of systematics, geographic distribution, biology, and ecology of the living marine and estuarine species of bivalves from the Argentine coast and its shelf and, based on this information, to analyze the species diversity of these areas. For that, 225 publications, including results of scientific expeditions, systematic revisions, description of new species, new distributional records, checklists, compilations on the diversity for particular areas, and contributions dealing with biological and ecological information, were surveyed. As part of this study, 277 nominal species of bivalves were found reported for the study area, although only 169 of them are currently regarded as valid. The analysis of the available bibliography makes evident that the Argentine bivalves have been overlooked throughout the years. This fact results in several limitations and gaps in the current knowledge of this fauna, which are highlighted in the present revision.