ИСТИНА

Caribbean marine invertebrates are unique and involve many species endemic to this biogeographical region. In recent decades, Caribbean coral reefs, and the copepods that inhabit them, have been rapidly dying due to human activities and climate change. Few researchers have addressed the issue of these microscopic crustaceans due to their small size and complex morphology. Current knowledge of symbiotic copepods is insufficient, and this impacts our ability to design adequate ecological management plans. Our aim was to review all known copepods in symbiosis with corals, sponges and echinoderms of the Greater Caribbean. The database, stored in Microsoft Access, consists of seven tables: "hosts", "symbionts", "literary records", "field samples", "sites", "publications" and a combining table. These tables comprise data on host and symbiont taxonomy, references to unique records in the World of Copepods, the number of associates per host, the nature of the symbiosis, the names and coordinates of collection sites, the depths and dates of collections, as well as publication sources. The database also includes records of samples collected in St. Eustatius (2015, 77 samples) and Curaçao (2017, 99 samples) and their underwater photographs. The database contains 444 records of 106 species of symbiotic copepods (44 genera, 17 families in 2 orders) hosted by 102 species of invertebrates (66 genera, 43 families, 23 orders in 6 classes). Host identification is incomplete in 13 of the 18 records of copepods that are in symbiosis with sponges. The data reveal that symbiotic copepods are discovered on 44% of scleractinian species, 9% of octocoral species, 3% of echinoderm species and less than 1% of sponge species within the Caribbean region. The Greater Antilles and the Southern Caribbean are the better explored ecoregions of the Caribbean. The database establishes 145 and 115 records of symbiotic copepods for these two regions, respectively. The Bahamas, the Eastern, and the Western Caribbean are represented by 57, 52, and 50 records of symbiotic copepods, accordingly. There are only 16 records for Florida and 8 records for Bermuda. The Northern and Southern Gulf of Mexico, as well as Southwestern Caribbean, have not yet been examined. Poecilostomatoid copepods, commonly found on Indo-Pacific stony corals, have not been observed in the Caribbean Sea. Our results indicate that the diversity and ecology of Caribbean symbiotic copepods are still poorly investigated.