Gammaridea is one of the suborders of the order Amphipoda, comprising small, shrimp-like crustaceans. Until recently, in a traditional classification, it encompassed about 7,275 (92%) of the 7,900 species of amphipods described by then, in approximately 1,000 genera, divided among around 125 families.[1] That concept of Gammaridea included almost all freshwater amphipods, while most of the members still were marine.
The group is however considered paraphyletic, and is under deconstruction by the amphipod taxonomists James K. Lowry and Alan A. Myers. In 2003 they moved several families from Gammaridea to join members of the former Caprellidea in a new suborder Corophiidea.[2] Further, in 2013 another large suborder Senticaudata was established, which now encompasses much of the original Gammaridea, particularly its freshwater families, and into which also the Corophiidea was merged.[3][4]
The remaining Gammaridea encompasses 85 families and about 4,000 of the ca. 9,550 amphipod species recognized in 2014.[5][6] The family Gammaridae does not belong to Gammaridea in this new system.
This list comprises those families that remain in the suborder Gammaridea after the separation of the Senticaudata, as listed in WoRMS (April 2014):[6]
This alternative listing of families (divided to superfamilies) reflects the composition of the Gammaridea before the revision in 2013,[3] when much of its contents were removed to a new suborder Senticaudata.[4]
^A. A. Myers & J. K. Lowry (2003). "A phylogeny and a new classification of the Corophiidea Leach, 1814 (Amphipoda)". Journal of Crustacean Biology 23 (2): 443–485. doi:10.1651/0278-0372
Media related to Gammaridea at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Gammaridea at Wikispecies