Abstract
Sixty eight species of decapod Crustacea were collected in the coastal waters of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These consisted of one species of peneid shrimp, fourteen species in four families of caridean shrimp, one scylarid lobster, six species of hermit crabs, ten species of porcelain crabs and thirty six species in seven families of brachyuran crabs. There were three new generic and nineteen new species records for the Arabian Gulf, including one spider crab of the genus Menaethiops that is new to science. Synonymies and distribution records are given for the collected decapod species, emphasizing those from western Indian Ocean locations. Onshore and offshore transects were taken to a maximum depth of 15 m. Most of the offshore biological collecting was done using Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) techniques. The Dubai substratum is primarily intertidal and subtidal sand. There are two tidal creeks, and jetties of various sizes along the coast. One unique barrier reef-lagoonal system was found in Jebel Ali, and included a short stretch of rocky intertidal beach. Offshore areas had scattered carbonate sandstone outcrops that supported some epibiota. Computer clustering techniques were used to divide the western Indian Ocean into faunal provinces on the basis of decapod distribution records. Six faunal provinces were recognized: the West Indian Province, Maldivian Province, Red Sea Province, Seychellian Province, East African Province, and Southeast African Province. Only three of the sixteen similarity indices tested gave realistic zoogeographic groupings of decapod distribution data. These three indices ("PHI", "UN4" and "Y") also seem very resilient to disparities in collecting effort. This is especially important in zoogeographic studies because of the different amount of study various locations have received. Moreover, these three similarity indices are also shown to be applicable to ecological studies of faunas from different biotopes.
Titgen, Richard Hol (1982). The systematics and ecology of the decapods of Dubai, and their zoogeographic relationships to the Arabian Gulf and the western Indian Ocean. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -515418.