Antipatharia

There are currently 97 antipatharian species recorded from the Atlantic Ocean (Supplementary file), with representatives of all seven families. Of this total, approximately 59 % (~ 57 spp.) of the species occur in the western North Atlantic, this being the region that holds the largest number of records (Supplementary file). About 58 species of the order are endemic to the Atlantic. Five genera are unique to this region: Distichopathes Opresko, 2004, and Elatopathes Opresko, 2004, in the family Aphanipathidae; Tanacetipathes Opresko, 2001, in the family Myriopathidae; and Taxipathes Brook, 1889 and Telopathes MacIsaac & Best 2013; in the family Schizopathidae. Of the 97 black coral species recorded for the entire Atlantic, three species (about 3 %) are endemic to the southwestern region and none are endemic to the southeastern region so far. The southeastern Atlantic has only one black coral record, Parantipathes helicosticha Opresko, 1999, from Valdivia seamount, which forms part of the Walvis Ridge (Molodtsova & Pasternak, 2005). As of 2009 approximately 40 black coral species (16 % of the diversity of antipatharians species currently known worldwide) were recorded from the Gulf of Mexico (data compiled in this paper; Opresko, 2009). The Caribbean Sea, being one of the regions with the best documented antipatharian faunas of the world (Opresko, 2009; Wagner et al., 2015), has 57 recorded species. The major biogeographic barriers which were thought to separate the shallow-water fauna of the Caribbean Sea and the northeastern part of South America from the rest of the Atlantic coast of South America are the mouth of the Amazon River and the mouth of the Orinoco River. However, Cordeiro et al. (2015) recently verified the existence of a mesophotic reef between 18 and 125 m deep at 15 km off the mouth of the Amazon River, and recorded 38 coral species for this region, including a species in the antipatharian genus Cirrhipathes. Thus, corals occurring below 30 m do not suffer from the direct influence of the Amazon plume (Cordeiro et al., 2015), thereby enabling faunal connectivity between the Caribbean Sea and the South Atlantic. Approximately 25 black coral species occur in Brazil (including records documented in the present work). Of these, 15 are shared with the Caribbean Sea. The best documented region in the western South Atlantic corresponds to the region between 13 ° and 22 ° S (Loiola & Castro, 2001; Loiola & Castro, 2005; Loiola, 2007; Cordeiro et al., 2012). Although there is a record of the species Tanacetipathes tanacetum (Pourtalès, 1880) for the Parcel of Manuel Luís, the northern region of Brazil still represents a great gap in knowledge. This study contains the first description of the black coral fauna of the Rio Grande Rise, and identifies nine species for the region. However, only Leiopathes glaberrima (Esper, 1788) is shared with the Brazilian continental margin. Other two species [Leiopathes glaberrima (Esper, 1788); Stauropathes punctata (Roule, 1905)] occur in the northeastern Atlantic, while three species [Parantipathes helicosticha Opresko, 1999; Parantipathes laricides Van Pesch, 1914; and Stichopathes paucispina Brook, 1889] occur in IndoPacific. Parantipathes helicosticha, orginally described from Australia and Tasmania, also has a record for the Walvis Range in the Southeast Atlantic. In the future, more specimens collected in the Rio Grande Rise may also allow confirmation of the identification of Trissopathes tristicha (Van Pesch, 1914) and Triadopathes triadocrada (Opresko, 1999) for the South Atlantic. Both species were also originally described for the western Pacific, in waters adjacent to coast of Australia. Although the invertebrate fauna of the Rio Grande Rise has just begun to be studied in this decade, the icthyofauna already recorded has a high similarity with that found in the Walvis and Madagascar Cordillera, the latter in the Indian Ocean (Pérez et al., 2012). However, any biogeographic inference for antipatharians is still premature.