EXPEDITION "ESPER"

Very little is known about the Porifera fauna of Peru despite the ecological importance of that group and its potential source of economical revenue, since it is one of the richest marine natural sources of new chemical structures. As part of a National Action Plan for Marine Biodiversity Assessment, the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) has launched a program to inventory the diversity of taxonomic groups along the entire coast of Peru. Since 2004 the RBINSc is coordinating such an inventory in Southern Chile in cooperation with the Museu Nacional of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (MNRJ) and the Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève (MHNG). Enriched with three years of collaboration including 5 expeditions, our group will extend its geographical area of investigation to Peru, in cooperation with local scientists and institutions. Within the first year of our project, we plan to inventory the sponge fauna in 10 localities already under study for other taxa, roughly from Lima to the Ecuadorian border. This study will allow local scientists to develop a reference collection of Porifera, becoming acquainted with basic protocols for the identification of species within this Phylum, and will possibly also allow the determination of northern distribution limits for several species known from the central Chilean coast.