State of the art of the meiofauna of Brazilian Sandy Beaches

Abstract

In Brazil, meiofauna studies began in the middle of last century, but they adopted a purely taxonomical approach, describing species from various zoological groups. After this first step, this benthic group was largely neglected until the end of the 20th century when ecological studies began. We here provide a brief review of present knowledge of the meiofauna found on Brazilian sandy beaches to provide information for ReBentos (Coastal Benthic Habitats Monitoring Network). Our methodology consisted of a bibliographic survey undertaken using different datasets (Web of ScienceTM, SCOPUS, Google Scholar and Lattes Plataform). For the survey, we considered only those studies published till early 2015. Our analysis showed that the number of meiofauna studies has increased over the last two decades, though they are mainly still concentrated on the Southeast of Brazil. These studies aim to explain the distribution pattern of the meiofauna of the intertidal region of sandy beaches. Based on the results, we presented a discussion of three main topics, i.e., (a) current knowledge of Brazilian sandy beach meiofauna, (b) sampling strategies for monitoring of the meiofauna, and (c) use of the meiofauna as a tool to assess climate change. We trust that this brief review will be useful as a starting point for the delineation of further climate change investigations into sandy beach meiofauna.