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New Horizons in Meiobenthos Research pp 153–173Cite as

Freshwater Meiofauna—A Biota with Different Rules?

Abstract

Great divergences arise when comparing the ecology of meiofauna in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Emphasizing the main differences between freshwater meiofauna and their marine counterparts, we will go on a stepwise journey through three major frontiers in freshwater research, which in turn are hierarchically interrelated: biodiversity, community organization (e.g. food webs structure), and ecosystem processes (e.g. metabolism and organic carbon breakdown). The starting point of this chapter is one of the utmost frontiers, both in marine and freshwater research: meiofaunal diversity. Especially in freshwater ecosystems diversity becomes evident since, here, habitats extend as highly disconnected biotopes, each characterized by an often fundamentally different biocenosis. From the biodiversity level, we move up the theoretical hierarchy to assess the role of meiofauna as an integral part of benthic food webs. Recent research underlines the role of freshwater meiofauna as highly connected nodes and shows their pivotal role in the transfer of energy and carbon along food chains. Distributed over all trophic levels, this structure contrasts with the prevailing conception of meiofauna in food webs, where meiofauna often are considered rather marginal units. Finally, we apply allometric principles from the metabolic theory of ecology in order to assess the role of freshwater meiofauna in the functioning of the benthic systems. With a novel modelling framework we develop an analytical perspective, showing that secondary production of micro- and meiobenthic communities can predict microbial decomposition rates within the benthic interface. Our results demonstrate that productive micro- and meiobenthos act as catalysers in the system of organic carbon breakdown and recycling. These findings underline the relevance of freshwater meiofauna within the biogeochemical carbon cycle. The mechanistic forces behind the processes involved require future experimental research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Ignacio Peralta-Maraver

  2. School of Life and Health Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, UK

    Ignacio Peralta-Maraver & Anne L. Robertson

  3. Fakultät Biologie, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

    Walter Traunspurger & Nabil Majdi

  4. Zoologisches Institut, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Olav Giere

Authors
  1. Ignacio Peralta-Maraver
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  2. Walter Traunspurger
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  3. Anne L. Robertson
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  4. Olav Giere
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  5. Nabil Majdi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ignacio Peralta-Maraver .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zoologisches Institut und Zoologisches Museum, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Olav Giere

  2. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Lowestoft, UK

    Michaela Schratzberger

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Peralta-Maraver, I., Traunspurger, W., Robertson, A.L., Giere, O., Majdi, N. (2023). Freshwater Meiofauna—A Biota with Different Rules?. In: Giere, O., Schratzberger, M. (eds) New Horizons in Meiobenthos Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21622-0_6

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