Abstract

Chilean intertidal copepods have been a littleies studied group, there are isolated reports for the central Chilean coast and island territories. The aim of this study was to analyze intertidal copepod assemblies on Chilean islands territories (Easter Island, San Felix, San Ambrosio, Alejandro Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe islands) and compare them with respect to an area of the continental coastal zone (Montemar, Valparaiso), through null model analysis of species co-occurrence and a cluster analysis. Null model results indicated. for a simulation, the existence of regulatory factors, while two simulations showed no regulatory factors, that would presumably due to the low number of species reported. Moreover, cluster analysis revealed the existence of a core group comprising the islands Alejandro Selkirk, San Felix, and Robinson Crusoe, followed later by Easter Island, and finally Montemar. Ecological topics were analyzed, mainly related with regulation patterns of species richness, as possible explanations for the observed results.