Biodiversity of Non-Marine Ostracoda (Crustacea) of Botswana: An Annotated Checklist with Notes on Distribution

Botswana constitutes a major gap in our knowledge of the distribution of Ostracoda in the region of Southern Africa, restraining thorough biogeographic interpretations. We combine records from previously published surveys along with our own field collections to provide a collation of living and fossil (Late Pleistocene to Holocene) Ostracoda recorded in Botswana. Our survey yielded 17 species, of which nine species have not been recorded before in the country. Including the present update, 54 species (45 living and nine fossil or subfossil) belonging to 22 genera of five families (with 76% species belonging to the family Cyprididae) are currently reported from Botswana. Yet, 23 taxa are left in open nomenclature, indicating the urgent need for sound systematic studies on harmonizing taxonomy of Southern African ostracods, especially of those inhabiting small temporary waterbodies, considered as threatened with extinction before being properly described or discovered. This updated checklist provides detailed information about the distribution and habitat of each recorded species. Species richness, distribution patterns, and diversity of ostracod species regionally and in different freshwater ecoregions are also discussed. We found low alpha (site) diversity (mean 3.3 species per site) and a significant difference in species composition and beta diversity of the Okavango ecoregion versus the Kalahari and Zambezian Lowveld ecoregions.