Gastrotricha is a group of meiofaunal-sized, free-living invertebrates present in all aquatic ecosystems. The phylum includes over 860 species globally, of which 505 nominal species have been recorded in marine sandy sediments; another 355 taxa inhabit the freshwater environments, where they are recurrent members of the periphyton and epibenthos, and, to a lesser degree, of the plankton and interstitial fauna. Gastrotrichs are part of the permanent meiofauna and, in general, they rank among the top five groups for abundance within meiobenthic assemblages. The diversity, abundance, and ubiquity of Gastrotricha allow us to suppose an important role for these animals in aquatic ecosystems; however, ecological studies to prove this idea have been comparatively very few. This is mainly because the small size and transparency of their bodies make gastrotrichs dicult to discover in benthic samples; moreover, their contractility and fragility make their handling and morphological survey of the specimens rather dicult. Here we oer an overview, describe the basic techniques used to study these animals, and provide a key to known genera in an attempt to promote easy identification and to increase the number of researchers who may be interested in conducting studies on this understudied ecological group of microscopic organisms.
An Introduction to the Study of Gastrotricha, with a Taxonomic Key to Families and Genera of the Group / Todaro, M. Antonio; Sibaja-Cordero, Jeffrey Alejandro; Segura-Bermúdez, Oscar A.; Coto-Delgado, Génesis; Goebel-Otárola, Nathalie; Barquero, Juan D.; Cullell-Delgado, Mariana; Dal Zotto, Matteo. - In: DIVERSITY. - ISSN 1424-2818. - 11:7(2019), pp. 117-142. [10.3390/d11070117]
An Introduction to the Study of Gastrotricha, with a Taxonomic Key to Families and Genera of the Group
Todaro, M. Antonio
;Dal Zotto, Matteo
2019
Abstract
Gastrotricha is a group of meiofaunal-sized, free-living invertebrates present in all aquatic ecosystems. The phylum includes over 860 species globally, of which 505 nominal species have been recorded in marine sandy sediments; another 355 taxa inhabit the freshwater environments, where they are recurrent members of the periphyton and epibenthos, and, to a lesser degree, of the plankton and interstitial fauna. Gastrotrichs are part of the permanent meiofauna and, in general, they rank among the top five groups for abundance within meiobenthic assemblages. The diversity, abundance, and ubiquity of Gastrotricha allow us to suppose an important role for these animals in aquatic ecosystems; however, ecological studies to prove this idea have been comparatively very few. This is mainly because the small size and transparency of their bodies make gastrotrichs dicult to discover in benthic samples; moreover, their contractility and fragility make their handling and morphological survey of the specimens rather dicult. Here we oer an overview, describe the basic techniques used to study these animals, and provide a key to known genera in an attempt to promote easy identification and to increase the number of researchers who may be interested in conducting studies on this understudied ecological group of microscopic organisms.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
Todaro et al-2019-diversity-main.pdf
Open access
Descrizione: articolo principale
Tipologia:
VOR - Versione pubblicata dall'editore
Dimensione
10.28 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
10.28 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I metadati presenti in IRIS UNIMORE sono rilasciati con licenza Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal, mentre i file delle pubblicazioni sono rilasciati con licenza Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale (CC BY 4.0), salvo diversa indicazione.
In caso di violazione di copyright, contattare Supporto Iris