Redescription of the rare Chydorus tilhoi Rey & Saint-Jeans 1969 on specimens from the Congo River (Afrika)

• Grant number: 22/16558-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Gilmar Perbiche Neves
• Grantee: Barbara Aparecida Souza da Silva
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The zooplankton community transfer energy and biomass between producers and consumers in the food web, but there are still few studies in some biogeographically relevant and difficult to access regions due to multiple reasons. The Afrotropical region covers much of the African continent, south of the Sahara Desert, and in this region some of the largest rivers in the world are born, such as the Nile, Congo, Niger and Zambezi. The Congo River, the second largest in the world in terms of drainage area and water flow, is still unknown in terms of the zooplankton community and the present project aims to redescribe a rare species of cladoceran from this basin. Four sampling campaigns were carried which collected 156 samples, in flood and drought periods, between 2013 and 2021, and specimens of Chydorus tilhoi were found in two samples in the Sankuro and Kasai rivers. These organisms will be morphologically analyzed and one specimen will be designated as a neotype, in addition to the deposit. of paratypes in museums. A detailed and complete morphological description will be provided, with illustrations in camera lucida and digital images in trinocular microscopes with a Leica digital camera, especially of the thoracic appendages. The results will be presented at scientific events in the area and, at the end, submitted in the form of a scientific article to specialized events.