Open WL Archief (OWA)

I started studying Siphonostomatoid Copepods associated with invertebrates in 1994, while preparing to do my Master's in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, later on I moved to the University of Sao Paulo for my Ph.D and then moved to the Federal University of Bahia in northeastern Brazil in 2004. The association with invertebrates always fascinated me for many reasons: (1) the lack of knowledge in Brazil, the fish parasites have been known since the late 1800s, but the invertebrate associates were recorded for the first time in 1988; (2) the possibility to deal with any possible invertebrate while looking for the siphonostomatoids, once the marine invertebrates always fascinated me; (3) the amount of unanswered questions about this section of the order, although systematics have always been my major interest.

In 2005, I founded the LABIMAR (Marine Invertebrate Lab) with a Coral Reef specialist, Dr. E. Neves, who works at the same institution. The lack of other Marine Invertebrate taxonomists made the lab a harbor for young students interested not only in Siphonostomatoida and corals but also in other crustaceans, mollusks, poriferans, and echinoderms.

Despite the interest and the many studies developed with amphipods, brachyurans such as the gall-crabs, my major interest has always been the Siphonostomatoida, its diversity, and, recently, after the establishment of many exotic invertebrates, such as the green mussel and the sun coral, the interactions with these new hosts and the possibility of arrival of new copepods to Brazil.

I consider WoRMS to be enormously useful to provide up-to-date host nomenclature and copepod taxonomic diversity data. Therefore, I have felt the need to contribute to WoRMS. Presently, my team has 3 members working directly with siphonostomatoids in research, collection organization, and data management: Dr. Amilcar Farias, Master's degree student Riane Mauricio, and undergraduate student Maria Eduarda Leal. All of them have enthusiastically embraced the idea of gathering data for revising and expanding further information regarding the Siphonostomatoida associated with invertebrates and their hosts.