Checklist of Polychaetes in Freshwater, Estuarine and Coastal Marine Habitats in Malaysia
Raz Shauqeena Batrisyea Razmi Shah, Yusof Shuaib Ibrahim, Tulio F. Villalobos-Guerrero, Masanori Sato

1 Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu Malaysia
2 Department of Marine Ecology, Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y de Educacion Superior de Ensenada, 22860, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
3 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Engineering and Science, Kagoshima University, 1 21 35 Korimoto, Kagoshima 890 0065, Japan

Abstract

A comprehensive checklist and research efforts of polychaete studies in Malaysian waters, including a freshwater species, are presented here. A total of 56 species from 29 polychaete families was reported from the early 1870s until recently, and Nereididae being the most species rich family with nine species. This checklist comprises of records from existing checklist, recent literatures, and new and overlooked records. New records and new species were also included. Despite the increased effort of polychaete studies in the past decade, the taxonomic effort in describing species in the country is rather low. Malaysian polychaetes were recorded from the Peninsular Malaysia, but very few from the Borneo Island. Most of previously recorded species inhabit the intertidal and estuarine habitats, and few from the subtidal and freshwater habitats. Hence, this review indicated that more urgent research needs to be done as the accumulation curve of species has not reached asymptote.

Keywords: Bathymetric, freshwater, inventory, north borneo, new records

Topic: Aquatic Biodiversity