The Fundão dam failure: Iron ore tailing impact on marine benthic macrofauna.

The Fundão dam failure, the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, launched 50 million m of iron ore tailings mud through the Doce River, reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, mine tailings increase the sediment inflow, leading to mud burial of epibenthic macrofauna, and the raise of metal(oid)s concentration causing macrofauna long-term changes. After almost four years, tailings mud was still spreading on the Doce River Shelf, while impacts on marine macrofauna were still unknown.

On the use of troglomorphic characters in Namanereidinae (Annelida; Nereididae) systematics.

The Namanereidinae are one of the most successful polychaete groups to colonize subterranean waters. Many species have evolved adaptations to underground life including elongation of appendages and reduction of eyes and pigmentation. However, the use of these troglomorphic characters in the group's systematics is contentious.

A new species of and an annotated checklist of polychaetes from mangroves of the Brazilian Amazon Coast (Annelida, Paraonidae).

The polychaete fauna from the mangroves of the Amazon Coast in Maranhão state, Brazil, is reported in this study. Fourteen species are listed, namely (Leuckart, 1847); Arabella (Arabella) iricolor Montagu, 1804; (Fabricius, 1780) complex; Exogone (Exogone) breviantennata Hartmann-Schröder, 1959; (Claparède, 1864); Müller, 1858; Hartman, 1944; Nageswara Rao, 1981; (Gravier, 1901); (Saint-Joseph, 1901); Perkins, 1980; ; (Hartman, 1945); and Müller, 1858. Among them, and are recorded for the first time in Brazil.

Description of a new species of Namalycastis (Annelida: Nereididae: Namanereidinae) from the Brazilian coast with a phylogeny of the genus.

The subfamily Namanereidinae represents one of the few groups of Polychaeta strongly adapted to low salinity and freshwater. Recently, some new species of the subfamily have been described, but no new phylogenetic analyses for the group have been undertaken since 1999. Here, we describe a new species of Namanereidinae, Namalycastis caetensis sp.