Similitud de la ficoflora marina en zonas del Atlántico Occidental Tropical y Subtropical

Macroalgae are an important component of marine biodiversity for its role in coastal-marine ecosystems as primary producers, competitors for resources, and bioindicators of environmental problems. Knowing native taxa allows watching on foreigner and invasive species. This work arises from the need of updating the similarities of marine macroalgae of the Tropical and Subtropical Western Atlantic, due to the advances in the knowledge of new taxa in the last years. For this analysis, the Tropical and Subtropical Western Atlantic was subdivided into 17 zones. A total of 1615 infrageneric taxa were inventoried so far, of which 368 belong to the phylum Chlorophyta, 1050 to Rhodophyta, and 197 to the class Phaeophyceae of the phylum Ochrophyta. From them, only 65 were found in all zones, while 516 were registered in only one. Multivariate analyses with all the species indicate the separation of North Carolina + South Carolina + Georgia zone from the rest; rhodophyceans present the lower similarity among zones, being Bermuda, Northern Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and Brazil more separated individually, while Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Dutch Antilles + Trinidad-Tobago from a distanced group. The region has a high similarity in the composition of macroalgae, mainly from a central core that includes the whole Caribbean, the south of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida.