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An ecological study of an Antarctic freshwater pool with particular reference to Tardigrada and Rotifera

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Abstract

Deep Lake Tarn is a small pool in the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica, which freezes solid seasonally. When free water is present, rotifers, tardigrades, nematodes, protozoans and bacteria are active and are mainly associated with an algal mat composed of cyanophytes, chlorophytes chrysophytes and a pyrrophyte.Hypsibius arcticus (Murray) (Tardigrada) reached a maximum density of 470 individuals per g wet weight of algal mat and individuals took about three months to reach full size. A new species ofIsohypsibius was recorded and will be described elsewhere. Tardigrades overwintered in their cryptobiotic state. The population density of bdelloid rotifers changed cyclically, peaking at three-weekly intervals during summer. They also overwintered in their cryptobiotic state.

Monogonont rotifers appeared only in summer and species succession occurred. They are thought to overwinter as resting eggs. Two bdelloid rotifers,Macrotrachela quadricornifera (Milne) andMniobia russeola (Zelinka) and one monogonont rotiferPtygura sp., are new records for continental Antarctica.

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  1. Biology Section, Antarctic Division, Department of Science and the Environment, 568 St. Kilda Road, 3004, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    D. A. Everitt

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Everitt, D.A. An ecological study of an Antarctic freshwater pool with particular reference to Tardigrada and Rotifera. Hydrobiologia 83, 225–237 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00008270

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