Annelid Diversity: Historical Overview and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Annelida is a ubiquitous, common and diverse group of organisms, found in terrestrial, fresh waters and marine environments. Despite the large efforts put into resolving the evolutionary relationships of these and other Lophotrochozoa, and the delineation of the basal nodes within the group, these are still unanswered. Annelida holds an enormous diversity of forms and biological strategies alongside a large number of species, following Arthropoda, Mollusca, Vertebrata and perhaps Platyhelminthes, among the species most rich in phyla within Metazoa. The number of currently accepted annelid species changes rapidly when taxonomic groups are revised due to synonymies and descriptions of a new species. The group is also experiencing a recent increase in species numbers as a consequence of the use of molecular taxonomy methods, which allows the delineation of the entities within species complexes. This review aims at succinctly reviewing the state-of-the-art of annelid diversity and summarizing the main systematic revisions carried out in the group. Moreover, it should be considered as the introduction to the papers that form this Special Issue on Systematics and Biodiversity of Annelids.