Harpacticoida (Crustacea: Copepoda) of the South China Sea: faunistic and biogeographical analysis

Based on original and on published databases, a compendium of the Harpacticoida of the South China Sea is presented, and the distributional range of species is discussed. Up to now, a total of 77 harpacticoid species belonging to 57 genera and 19 families have been recorded in this region. Twenty of these species, collected in Nha-Trang Bay (Vietnam), have not hitherto been described. The most speciose families are the Miraciidae (20 species) and the Laophontidae (9 species). Thirteen families were represented by one to three species only and six families by four to seven species. A brief comparison is presented between the harpacticoid fauna of the South China Sea, the Philippine Islands, the inner Malayan Archipelago (Java, Flores, Banda, and Celebes Seas), New Guinea, the Yellow Sea, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The overall similarity between the species lists of these areas was observed to be extremely low (average value of Simpson index is 0.15 ± 0.08). The lists of planktonic species from the different areas showed the highest similarity. The lowest similarity (highest endemism) was observed between the lists of interstitial species. It is likely that one of the factors determining the differences between the faunas is the poor knowledge about the composition and distribution of benthic harpacticoids in tropical latitudes.