Fifteen species in one: deciphering the Brachionus plicatilis species complex (Rotifera, Monogononta) through DNA taxonomy

Understanding patterns and processes in biological diversity is a critical task given current and rapid environmental change. Such knowledge is even more essential when the taxa under consideration are important ecological and evolutionary models. One of these cases is the monogonont rotifer cryptic species complex Brachionus plicatilis, which is by far the most extensively studied group of rotifers, is widely used in aquaculture, and is known to host a large amount of unresolved diversity. Here we collate a dataset of previously available and newly generated sequences of COI and ITS1 for 1273 isolates of the B. plicatilis complex and apply three approaches in DNA taxonomy (i.e. ABGD, PTP, and GMYC) to identify and provide support for the existence of 15 species within the complex. We used these results to explore phylogenetic signal in morphometric and ecological traits, and to understand correlation among the traits using phylogenetic comparative models. Our results support niche conservatism for some traits (e.g. body length) and phylogenetic plasticity for others (e.g. genome size)

Rotifer Species Richness in Kenyan Waterbodies: Contributions of Environmental Characteristics

The aquatic microfauna of Africa is poorly characterized, especially in the case of planktonic rotifers inhabiting waterbodies other than large lakes. In addition, little is known about factors that structure these communities. Here, we assessed the roles of climatic region, habitat type, macrophyte abundance, and a suite of abiotic environmental factors in determining rotifer species’ richness and composition in waterbodies located across a 2300 m altitudinal gradient in Kenya. Plankton samples were obtained from 33 sites in 23 waterbodies. From these, 93 rotifer taxa were identified from 18 families comprising 31 genera. About one fourth (25 taxa) were new records for Kenya, from which 4 species were new for Africa. Species richness was the highest in permanent as compared to temporary habitats. Richness was strongly positively correlated with all environmental factors and strongly influenced by macrophyte abundance. When spatial structure was added to the GLM model, species richness was no longer significantly correlated with macrophytes. Unconstrained detrended correspondence analysis conducted at the species level indicated four suites of species associated with either (1) longitude, (2) elevation, (3) latitude, temperature, and hydroperiod, or (4) macrophytes. This study contributes to our knowledge of the patterns of rotifer biogeography and species richness in Africa

Invertebrates in overlooked aquatic ecosystem in the middle of the town

Background and Purpose: Fountains are common, but usually overlooked anthrotelmata to which just only little attention has been paid. This work brings the first, more comprehensive evidence about seasonal urban fountain ecosystems and their biodiversity in Prešov town (Slovakia).Materials and Methods: The biodiversity of aquatic organisms from 6 fountains in Prešov town (Slovakia) were studied and basic environmental characteristics, such as pH, temperature, oxygen saturation and electrical conductivity (25 °C), were measured in 2014. Water depth of studied fountains varied between 10–30 cm and water volume from 1.9 to 51 m3. For statistical evaluation was used Friedman’s Rank Sum test (Friedman 1937), non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test (Kruskal & Wallis 1952) and Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Cluster analysis of the abundance, based on the Euclidean distance and the paired group algorithm in PAST 2.17c (Hammer et al. 2001) was used to highlight the relationship among the taxa.Results and Conclusion: During initial research was found over 58 taxa of the phyla Rotifera, Nematoda and Arthropoda. The most abundant insect group from these habitats was the Diptera order. The species Zavrelimyia nubila (Diptera: Chrinomidae) is recorded in Slovakia for the first time. The abundance of evaluated insects taxa differed depending on the date, but also was influenced by water characteristics. Water volume and water depth negatively but not significantly correlated with abundance of all evaluated orders. Water pH showed positive significant correlation with abundance of beetles, and negative, but not significant, correlation with abundance of flies and mayflies

FIGURES 46–47 in An integrative description of Macrobiotus paulinae sp. nov. (Tardigrada: Eutardigrada: Macrobiotidae: hufelandi group) from Kenya

FIGURES 46–47. Peribuccal lamellae in type specimens of: 46—Macrobiotus acadianus comb. nov. (Meyer et al., 2011) and 47—Macrobiotus julianae comb. nov. (Meyer, 2012). Photos by courtesy of Harry Meyer, both PCM. Scale bars in Μm.Published as part of Stec, Daniel, Smolak, Radoslav, Kaczmarek, Łukasz & Michalczyk, Łukasz, 2015, An integrative description of Macrobiotus paulinae sp. nov. (Tardigrada: Eutardigrada: Macrobiotidae: hufelandi group) from Kenya, pp. 501-526 in Zootaxa 4052 (2) on page 522, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4052.5.1, http://zenodo.org/record/23846

An integrative description of Macrobiotus paulinae sp. nov. (Tardigrada : Eutardigrada : Macrobiotidae : hufelandi group) from Kenya

Stec, Daniel, Smolak, Radoslav, Kaczmarek, Łukasz, Michalczyk, Łukasz (2015): An integrative description of Macrobiotus paulinae sp. nov. (Tardigrada: Eutardigrada: Macrobiotidae: hufelandi group) from Kenya. Zootaxa 4052 (2): 501-526, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4052.5.