Sustainable Marine Structures

Global Distribution of Brachyuran Crabs in Mangroves

Wah Wah Min

Center of Excellence for Ecoinformatics, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, 80161, Thailand

K. Kathiresan

Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Annamalai University, Parangipettai, 608502, India

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36956/sms.v6i1.1023

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Abstract

The present work has compiled a total of 389 brachyuran crab species belonging to 188 genera and 38 families to be present in mangrove forests across 122 countries/territories in 10 sub-regions of two global hemispheres viz., Indo-West Pacific (IWP) and Atlantic East Pacific (AEP). The mangrove crabs are highly diverse in the IWP as compared to AEP. They exceed 100 species in nine countries of the IWP viz., Indonesia, India, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, and China. The least number of mangrove crab species (> 10) are found to be present in 38 countries under the AEP. Four countries/territories do not have any record of mangrove crabs. Sesarmidae is the predominant family of mangrove crabs, followed by Ocypodidae and Portunidae. The present work also has brought out 818 synonyms, which otherwise interfere with the preparation of a checklist for an exact number of crab species. It is a matter of necessity to conserve the crabs, which are keystone species of the mangrove ecosystems.

Keywords: Mangroves, Brachyuran crabs, Keystone species, Species diversity, Occurrence and distribution, Checklist, Synonyms, Sesarmidae, Ocypodidae, Portunidae, IUCN, Indo-West Pacific, Atlantic East Pacific

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