  An on-shell formalism for the computation of S-matrices of SYM theories in
three spacetime dimensions is presented. The framework is a generalization of
the spinor-helicity formalism in four dimensions. The formalism is applied to
establish the manifest SO(N) covariance of the on-shell superalgebra relevant
to N =2,4 and 8 SYM theories in d=3. The results are then used to argue for the
SO(N) invariance of the S-matrices of these theories: a claim which is proved
explicitly for the four-particle scattering amplitudes. Recursion relations
relating tree amplitudes of three-dimensional SYM theories are shown to follow
from their four-dimensional counterparts. The results for the four-particle
amplitudes are verified by tree-level perturbative computations and a unitarity
based construction of the integrand corresponding to the leading perturbative
correction is also presented for the N=8 theory. For N=8 SYM, the manifest
SO(8) symmetry is used to develop a map between the color-ordered amplitudes of
the SYM and superconformal Chern-Simons theories, providing a direct connection
between on-shell observables of D2 and M2-brane theories.
