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Global diversity of inland water cnidarians

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Abstract

Global diversity of inland water cnidarians is low, containing <40 species belonging to phylogenetically distinct groups representing independent invasion events: the common and cosmopolitan hydras (12–15 species); the sporadically occurring freshwater medusae (6–16 sp.); the Cordylophorinae (2 sp.); the parasitic Polypodium (1 sp.); the medusae occurring in saline lakes (4 sp.). Freshwater cnidarians inhabit nearly all types of freshwater on all continents (except Antarctica), but only a few species have cosmopolitan distributions. Due to uncertainty in species knowledge, fine scale regions of endemicity are not yet clear.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Education and Science within the framework of the European Union Environment and Climate projects CLIME (EVK1-CT-2002-00121) and Eurolimpacs (GOCE-CT-2003-505540).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Resources Department, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Dubendorf, 8600, Switzerland

    Thomas Jankowski

  2. NMFS, National Systematics Laboratory, National Museum of Natural History, MRC-153, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC, 20013-7012, USA

    Allen G. Collins

  3. Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Richard Campbell

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  1. Thomas Jankowski
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  2. Allen G. Collins
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  3. Richard Campbell
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Correspondence to Thomas Jankowski.

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Guest editors: E. V. Balian, C. Lévêque, H. Segers & K. Martens

Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment

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Jankowski, T., Collins, A.G. & Campbell, R. Global diversity of inland water cnidarians. Hydrobiologia 595, 35–40 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-007-9001-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-007-9001-9

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