Andrea Polanco

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at ETH Zurich

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is changing the way biodiversity is surveyed in many types of ecosystems. eDNA surveys are now commonly performed and integrated into biodiversity monitoring programs and public databases. Although it is widely recognized that eDNA records require interpretation in light of taxonomy and biogeography, there rem...

The biodiversity crisis driven by anthropogenic pressures significantly threatens marine ecosystems. The rate of climate change and anthropogenic impacts outpace our traditional observation tools' capabilities, underscoring the urgency for new assessment methods. Environmental DNA (eDNA; DNA traces released by organisms) metabarcoding, a non‐invasi...

Fauna diversity in Madracis spp. coral patches in the Colombian Caribbean. Madracis spp. coral patches are the main deep-sea framework builder observed on the shelf-break scarp of the Colombian Caribbean, between 107 and 230 m depth. The Marine Protected Area, Corales de Profundidad National Natural Park, was established in 2013 to protect a site o...

Se registra por primera vez en el Caribe colombiano el pez globo Chilomycterus spinosus correspondiente a la familia Diodontidae. Un individuo de esta especie fue avistado en agosto de 2022 en la zona de Bahía Portete a una profundidad de 1.5 m. Se reporta una variación en el rango de profundidad de esta especie, a zonas más someras.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a method to detect taxa from environmental samples. It is increasingly used for marine biodiversity surveys. As it only requires water collection, eDNA metabarcoding is less invasive than scientific trawling and might be more cost effective. Here, we analysed data from both sampling methods applied in the s...

Aim Coastal fishes have a fundamental role in marine ecosystem functioning and contributions to people, but face increasing threats due to climate change, habitat degradation and overexploitation. The extent to which human pressures are impacting coastal fish biodiversity in comparison with geographic and environmental factors at large spatial scal...

Corales de Profundidad National Natural Park (CPNNP), at the central Colombian Caribbean margin, has an extension of 142.195 ha with depths ranging from 34 to 1,234 m. The CPNNP’s essential ecological value is Madracis spp. as potential structure-forming deep-water coral; this work represents the first footages of these unique habitats for the Colo...

La Cordillera submarina Beata se encuentra ubicada en el extremo nororiental del territorio marítimo de Colombia, dividiendo al Caribe en las cuencas de Colombia y Venezuela, con profundidades que van desde 1500 hasta 4400 metros. Los montes submarinos como la Cordillera Beata, se caracterizan por tener pendientes pronunciadas con sustratos duros y...

La zona batial inferior de la Cordillera Malpelo (entre 1800 y 3000 m de profundidad) es un área marina profunda sobre la cuenca del Pacífico Norte colombiano‚ con escasa información sobre su megafauna bentónica. En esta elevación marina se encuentran hábitats rocosos de interés ecológico‚ que ofrecen grandes extensiones de sustratos heterogéneos y...

La Cordillera submarina Beata se encuentra ubicada en el extremo nororiental del territorio marítimo de Colombia‚ dividiendo al Caribe en las cuencas de Colombia y Venezuela‚ con profundidades que van desde 1500 hasta 4400 metros. Los montes submarinos como la Cordillera Beata‚ se caracterizan por tener pendientes pronunciadas con sustratos duros y...

Abstract Mesophotic marine ecosystems are characterized by lower light penetration supporting specialized fish fauna. Due to their depths (−30–−150 m), accessibility is challenging, and the structure of mesophotic fish assemblages is generally less known than either shallow reefs or deep zones with soft bottoms which are generally trawled. Environm...

Abstract Human activities can degrade the quality of coral reefs and cause a decline in fish species richness and functional diversity and an erosion of the ecosystem services provided. Environmental DNA metabarcoding (eDNA) has been proposed as an alternative to Underwater Visual Census (UVC) to offer more rapid assessment of marine biodiversity t...

Increasing speed and magnitude of global change threaten the world’s biodiversity and particularly coral reef fishes. A better understanding of large-scale patterns and processes on coral reefs is essential to prevent fish biodiversity decline but it requires new monitoring approaches. Here, we use environmental DNA metabarcoding to reconstruct wel...

Human activities can degrade the quality of coral reefs, cause a decline in fish species richness and functional diversity and an erosion of the ecosystem services provided. Environmental DNA metabarcoding (eDNA) has been proposed as an alternative to Underwater Visual Census (UVC) to offer more rapid assessment of marine biodiversity to meet manag...

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has been the topic of considerable research, but it remains unclear how biodiversity decline is compromising ecosystem functionality, particularly in the pelagic realm. Here, we explore how pelagic fish species diversity relates to functional diversity by sampling two locations, which, on the...

En los cuerpos de agua marinos y dulceacuícolas habitan un amplio conjunto de organismos tanto microscópicos como macroscópicos, conocidos como plancton, que se encuentran suspendidos en la columna de agua y dependiendo de la capacidad motora, se pueden encontrar a merced de la corriente o desplazarse libremente en toda la columna. Este grupo está...

Quantifying fish species diversity in rich tropical marine environments remains challenging. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a promising tool to face this challenge through the filtering, amplification, and sequencing of DNA traces from water samples. However, because eDNA concentration is low in marine environments, the reliability of eD...

Assessing the impact of global changes and protection effectiveness is a key step in monitoring marine fishes. Most traditional census methods are demanding or destructive. Nondisturbing and nonlethal approaches based on video and environmental DNA are alternatives to underwater visual census or fishing. However, their ability to detect multiple bi...

El capítulo presenta una sinopsis del estado del conocimiento actual de la biodiversidad en Colombia así como los esfuerzos orientados a su reconocimiento desde los últimos 20 años, cuando apareció el Informe Nacional del Estado de la Biodiversidad en 1998. Además de los elementos numéricos sobre el conocimiento de la biodiversidad en Colombia, se...

Estuaries are characterized by a tidal regime and are strongly influenced by hydrodynamics and host diverse and highly dynamic habitats, from fresh, brackish, or saltwater to terrestrial, whose biodiversity is especially difficult to monitor. Here, we investigated the potential of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, with three primer sets targe...

Through the development of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, in situ monitoring of organisms is becoming easier and promises a revolution in our approaches to detect changes in biodiversity over space and time. A cornerstone of eDNA approach is the development of primer pairs that allow amplifying the DNA of specific taxonomic groups, which i...

La familia de peces óseos Synodontidae (orden Aulopiformes) incluye más de 70 especies en cuatro géneros a nivel mundial. En este trabajo se realiza una revisión taxonómica estudiando los caracteres merísticos y morfométricos de las cinco especies que existen en el Pacífico oriental. Se proveen fichas taxonómicas de las especies presentando el cono...

Quantifying the diversity of species in rich tropical marine environments remains challenging. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a promising tool to face this challenge through the filtering, amplification, and sequencing of DNA traces from water samples. However, the reliability of biodiversity detection from eDNA samples can be low in mar...

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has been the topic of considerable research, but it remains unclear how biodiversity decline is compromising ecosystem functionality, particularly in the pelagic realm. Here, we explore how pelagic fish species diversity relates to functional diversity by sampling two locations, which, on the...

Abstract for DNAQUA International Conference : international Conference on the Use of DNA for Water Biomonitoring - 2021

• Monitoring large marine mammals is challenging due to their low abundances in general, an ability to move over large distances and wide geographical range sizes. • The distribution of the pygmy (Kogia breviceps) and dwarf (Kogia sima) sperm whales is informed by relatively rare sightings, which does not permit accurate estimates of their distribu...

Coral reefs host the highest fish diversity on Earth despite covering less than 0.1% of the ocean’s seafloor. At the same time they are also extremely threatened. Data syntheses over decades of surveys estimate the total number of coral reef fishes to vary from 2,400 to 8,000 species distributed among roughly 100 families. But this diversity remain...

Aim Tropical America, including the Tropical Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, presents a high level of marine biodiversity, but its fish fauna has been poorly documented. In early studies marine species distributions were interpreted based on tectonic activity during the late Cenozoic, while more recent studies have highlighted a link with th...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is a revolutionary method to monitor marine biodiversity from animal DNA traces. Examining the capacity of eDNA to provide accurate biodiversity measures in species‐rich ecosystems such as coral reefs is a prerequisite for their application in long‐term monitoring. Here, we surveyed two Colombian tropical marine re...

The dwarf sperm whale, Kogia sima, is one of the lesser known Odontoceti species, in spite of its worldwide distribution, and is considered rare due to the difficult identification in the field. Detailed information is scarce and mostly comes from stranding events or bycatch animals, just a few sightings correspond to live specimens. In the Caribbe...

Acanthonus armatus Günther, 1878 is reported for the first time in the southwestern Caribbean region, off Colombia. Remote Operate Vehicle videos and towed camera still photographs captured 13 images of A. armatus between 2215 and 2564 m. These are the first records of the species in the Caribbean continental coast of Colombia, representing a range...

The Caramarí Bank is located in the northeastern side, out of the Deep-sea Coral National Natural Park of Colombia, NE-SW direction between the 70 m and 200 m isobaths. Is an elongated shape geoform that combines geological and biotic processes, via structural lifting through mud domes and via the colonization of coral formations. During an explora...

Se presentan datos descriptivos de tres especies de peces óseos colectados en La Guajira por el crucero Invemar-Macrofauna II, que se constituyen en primeros registros para el Caribe colombiano. Las especies examinadas son Ophichthus cruentifer (Goode y Bean) (Ophichthidae), un espécimen de 301 mm longitud total capturado a 493 m, Anchoa cubana (Po...

Opportunities 34 Hot off the Press 42 Obituaries 63 Here we are at Issue 10 of Deep-Sea Life, and gone are the days of having to chase around for articles to include! The life of a Deep-Sea Life editor is far easier these days and for that I thank you all! For those readers new to this publication, DSL is an informal and somewhat traditional way of...

Se hace un recuento de la riqueza íctica de los mares colombianos, enfatizando en los grupos amenazados de extinción en nuestras aguas y los factores de amenaza que se ciernen sobre ellos. Se detectan claras diferencias entre los peces cartilaginosos y los óseos en cuanto a sus posibilidades de supervivencia, pues mientras de los primeros 33% (41)...

Executive Summary The greater Caribbean biogeographic region covered in this report (representing 38 countries and territories) encompasses an outstanding marine bony shorefish richness of approximately 1,360 species, with many (53%) being endemic. While information on the conservation status of greater Caribbean seagrasses, mangrove, reef-building...

The extinction risk assessment process of Colombian marine fishes and the development of the Red Book of Marine Fishes of Colombia was a process developed in two by the Squalus Foundation carried out the assessment of sharks, rays, and chimaeras (chondrichthyan fishes); subsequently, Invemar started the same process with bony fishes. Following the...

Trachinocephalus, a formerly monotypic and nearly circumtropical genus of lizardfishes, is split into three valid species. Trachinocephalus gauguini n. sp. is described from the Marquesas Islands and is distinguished from the two other species in the genus by having a shorter snout, a narrower interorbital space, larger eye and modally fewer anal-f...

Habitat-forming bryozoans in the Colombian Caribbean Sea.

The marine environment of the Santa Marta region (Colombian Caribbean) is unique in many ways. The coexistence there of both species of Auxis is herewith reported and discussed. Auxis thazard, the frigate tuna or frigate mackerel, has been reported several times from Santa Marta; however, the occurrence of A. rochei, the bullet tuna or bullet macke...

A taxonomic checklist of larval stages of fish species recorded in the Colombian Caribbean is presented, as a product of an extensive literature review of studies on the topic. Eighty five family records included in 21 orders, with a total of 129 species were found. In terms of composition, the order Perciformes has shown the highest number of fami...

An inventory of the sh fauna of the Guajira region was made based on samples collected on a cruise performed between Palomino and Punta Espada along the isobaths of 10 and 50 m, from March 30 to April 8, 2005, on board of the B/I ANCÓN (INVEMAR) research vessel. A total of 3662 specimens were collected, representing 51 families, 113 species, and fo...

Actualmente, el limitado conocimiento de la biodiversidad marina en el mar profundo frente al interés cada vez mayor del ser humano por la exploración y explotación de estos ambientes en el Caribe colombiano (ej. exploración de hidrocarburos) se ha vuelto un problema nacional. Este perturbador escenario, requiere comenzar por una verdadera y notabl...

Eptatretus acerol, new species, is described from one specimen captured on the upper continental slope in Colombian Caribbean waters at 705 m depth. The species can be distinguished from all congeners by having five gill apertures, 3/2 multicuspid teeth in the outer and inner tooth rows, respectively, an extremely slender body with the depth at the...

The lionfish Pterois volitans is an invasive species throughout the Western Atlantic that disturbs functioning of local ecosystems such as coral reefs via fast and intense consumption of small fish and invertebrates. In 2009, lionfish populated the bays of Tayrona National Natural Park (TNNP), a biodiversity hotspot in the Colombian Caribbean that...

A taxonomic checklist of larval stages of fish species recorded in the Colombian Caribbean is presented, as a product of an extensive literature review of studies on the topic. Eighty five family records included in 21 orders, with a total of 129 species were found. In terms of composition, the order Perciformes has shown the highest number of fami...

Descriptive data on three species of bony fishes collected in the Colombian Caribbean by the Invemar-Macrofauna II cruise are presented; these include two first records for the area as well as the confirmation of the presence of one species. The studied species are: Bathyanthias cubensis (Schultz, 1958) (Serranidae), ten specimens between 36.2 and...

RESUMEN Se presentan datos descriptivos de tres especies de peces óseos capturadas en el Caribe colombiano por el crucero Invemar-Macrofauna II, dos de ellas son primeros registros para el área, y se confirma la presencia de una tercera. Las especies examinadas son: Bathyanthias cubensis (Schultz, 1958) (Serranidae), diez ejemplares con tallas entr...

Twenty one abundant and frequent marine fish species of Santa Marta and Tayrona National Natural Park (Colombian Caribbean) were identified as ornamentals with marked value. Species were ranked positively following various criteria, such as if they have been reared in other countries or if they are included in genera or families which have reared,...

Preliminary evaluation of marine fish species of potential value as ornamentals in Santa Marta and Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombian Caribbean. Twenty one abundant and frequent marine fish species of Santa Marta and Tayrona National Natural Park (Colombian Caribbean) were identified as ornamental with marked value. Species. were ranked posit...

In order to establish the group diversity and to clarify the status of some species, a taxonomic review of the teleostean fishes included in the order Batrachoidiformes (toadfishes) from Colombian waters was made, based on available samples in the main fish collections of the country. The Batrachoidiformes include a single family, Batrachoididae, w...

An inventory of the fish fauna of the Guajira region was made based on samples collected on a cruise performed between Palomino and Punta Espada along the isobaths of 10 and 50 m, from March 30 to April 8, 2005, on board of the B/I ANCÓN (INVEMAR) research vessel. A total of 3662 specimens were collected, representing 51 families, 113 species, and...

Difusión del conocimiento de la biodiversidad marina de Colombia a través de la Red Interamericana de Información sobre Biodiversidad – IABIN.

La Red Interamericana de Información sobre Biodiverstdad (IABIN) promueve la cooperación entre gobiernos y organizaciones de las Américas para la búsqueda y uso de información sobre biodiversidad útil en procesos de toma decisiones sobre conservación y manejo de los recursos. En el marco de dicha iniciativa, se llevó a cabo entre marzo y octubre de...

The family Antennariidae is represented by two genera (Antennarius and Histrio) and seven species in the Western Atlantic, and by two genera (Antennarius and Antennatus) and five species in the Eastern Pacific. All the species are known from Colombian waters, with the exception of Antenanrius coccineus. In this study we review the family Antenariid...

Problematic identity of the smalleye hammerhead (Carcharhiniformes: Sphyrna) occurring in Colombia. The presence of Sphyrna tudes in Colombian waters is supported by a 506 mm total length male collected in the southernmost corner of the Caribbean Sea, the mouth of Atrato river. A short discussion on the confusing taxonomic and nomenclatural history...

The family Antennariidae is represented by two genera (Antennarius and Histrio) and seven species in the Western Atlantic, and by two genera (Antennarius and Antennatus) and five species in the Eastern Pacific. All the species are known from Colombian waters, with the exception of Antenanrius coccineus. In this study we review the family Antenariid...

RESUMEN El ambiente marino de la región de Santa Marta (Caribe colombiano) es único en muchos aspectos. La coexistencia allí de las dos especies de Auxis se registra y discute en este trabajo. Auxis thazard, la cachorreta, ha sido registrada varias veces de Santa Marta; sin embargo, la existencia de A. rochei, la cachorreta alicorta, es presentada...

The marine environment of the Santa Marta region (Colombian Caribbean) is unique in many ways. The coexistence there of both species of Auxis is herewith reported and discussed. Auxis thazard, the frigate tuna or frigate mackerel, has been reported several times from Santa Marta; however, the occurrence of A. rochei, the bullet tuna or bullet macke...