Padrões distribucionais das espécies da família Leucosiidae Samouelle (1919) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) no Atlântico Ocidental baseados na distribuição potencial e análise de parcimônia de endemismo

Abstract

The Brazilian coast holds 21 species of crabs from the Leucosiidae family, being na interesting group for biogeographical studies. This work gathered 531 occurrence points from these species. This data survey was done to allow the usage of a predictive modeling technique implemented by Maxent software, in order to estimate the species geographical distribution. Those models were then subject of a Parsimony endemism analysis. Maps from the potential distribution of 15 species from this family were generated and used to determine biogeographical distributional patterns, that indicated an endemism area at the western Atlantic ocean, that was also considered a secondary dispersion center. Even though predictive modeling was never used before at continental shelf environments, it proved to show results that match the species distributional limits proposed in previous studies.