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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 2759

Walter Koste and Russell J. Shiel; Morphology, Systematics and ecology of new Monogonont Rotifera (Rotatoria) from the Alligator rivers region, Northern Territory. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia (Trans.R.Soc.S.Aust.) 107(2):109-121, 1983

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Seventy-six rotifer taxa were recorded from eight billabongs of the Magela creek, a tributary of the East Alligator River, at the end of a six month dry season. Three new taxa are described and figured: Brachionus falcatus Zacharias f. reductus n. f., B. urceolaris sericus n. f. and Macrochaetus danneeli n. sp., with two new records for the continent. The species assemblage is compared to that of the same biotopes in the wet season, in which 174 taxa, including four new species and 25 new records, were identified. Differences in rotifer species assemblages are related to biotope heterogeneity; shallow floodplain billabongs are extreme biotopes with low species diversity, whereas deeper perennial channel billabongs are refuges for a diverse assemblage of periphytic taxa and resting eggs of monogonont and encysted eggs of bdelloid rotifers of ephemeral waters of the area.