The Magellanic Province and its fish fauna (South America): several provinces or one?

Aim: We assessed the validity of the division of the Magellanic Province into the four provinces as proposed by Briggs and Bowen (2012): Southern Chile, Tierra del Fuego, Southern Argentina and Falkland (Malvinas) Islands. We aimed to 1) present an up to date list of the fishes from the region known as “Magellanic Province”, 2) analyze the specific richness of fishes in the Atlantic and Pacific sectors and their degree of endemism, 3) evaluate statistically the validity of the three Provinces proposed for the Atlantic sector Location: Southern tip of the American continent at latitudes higher than 40ºS in the Atlantic as well as in the Pacific Oceans. Methods: The list of fishes was prepared by consulting more than 140 sources, many related to observations resulting from research cruises, although two ichthyological collections and two ichthyological websites were also used. The South American species with distributions extending outside of the area corresponding to the Magellanic Pr...