ABSTRACT
From Trinidad (~10° N) to Cape Horn (~55° S) the South American margin changes from tropical to cool temperate. It encompasses a great range of environments including the enormous delta of the Amazon, coral reefs of I. Fernando de Noronha, mangrove swamps and tidal marshes, hypersaline and brackish lagoons as well as narrow and wide continental shelves. However, from the point of view of foraminiferal studies it is at a very early stage of knowledge. Scarcely anything is known of the faunas between Trinidad and Salvador. The coasts of southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have received some attention, but many of the papers are taxonomic and give only the sparsest ecological data. Major reviews include that of Boltovskoy (1976) on zoogeography and Boltovskoy et al . (1980) which illustrates the fauna of Argentinian waters and summarises the ecology.
