Abstract
Cladocera or water fleas are mostly freshwater crustaceans that inhabit all kinds of aquatic habitats such as lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers, river floodplains, oxbows, bogs, pools, canals, ditches, bog pools, swamps, dune depressions, moorland pools, flooded grasslands, clay pits, or tanks. Only a few cladocerans are marine species. Cladocera is a group of planktonic, phythophilic, and benthic species. They form the plankton community as algae grazers (filtrators) and predators (raptors). They also live on the bottom sediments (as benthic species) or on the surface of macrophytes (aquatic vegetation) or stones. Most species eat bacteria, detritus, or algae, but some are predators.
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Błędzki, L.A., Rybak, J.I. (2016). Introduction to Cladocera. In: Freshwater Crustacean Zooplankton of Europe . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29871-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29871-9_6
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