Imposex Incidence in Gastropod Species from Santa Marta Coastal Zone, Colombian Caribbean Sea.

Imposex is a phenomenon widely associated with environmental exposure to organotin compounds which were quite common components of antifouling paints applied on boats and ship hulls. Here we study the incidence of imposex in neogastropods and its relation with water quality and maritime traffic in the coastal strip of Santa Marta, Colombia. Imposex was determined via specialized indexes and related to the organisms' size, somatic conditions, variables of water quality and maritime traffic, in a space-time assessment.

[Morfogeometry shell crab Damithrax spinosissimus (Decapoda: Mithracidae) on three islands in the southwestern Caribbean].

The Caribbean King Crab, Damithrax spinosissimus is a fishery resource, but few biological studies are available. Its patchy distribution, and the high environmental heterogeneity due to the oceanographic, landscape, and ecological characteristics of the Caribbean Sea, can favor the phenotypic variability according to the geographic origin. For this reason, the objective of our study was to determine morphometic variability in the carapace of the crabs from three Southwestern Caribbean islands: Providence, Rosario and San Bernardo.

[Hermit crabs (Anomura: Paguroidea) distribution patterns in the Colombian Caribbean Sea].

Hermit crabs represent the marine life in the Colombian Caribbean, and are important for the dynamic equilibrium maintenance in ecosystems, the ecological interactions and their impact on food web stability. Generally, in order to come up with some conservation strategies, strong bio-geographical information is needed for poll cies definition. With this aim, this study analyzed the distribution patterns of hermit crabs in the Colombian Caribbean Sea.