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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 3536

Sudzuki Minoru; On the Microfauna of the Antarctic Region I. Moss-water community at Langhovde. JARE Scientific Reports Series E 19:1-41, 1964

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This paper deals primarily with a few basic problems, namely, taxonomy and faunology of the Antarctic moss-water animal community, based upon the materials collected from Langhovde on the Antarctic Continent. In the present author's investigation some 91 species under 7 classes have been recognized as constituting the Antarctic moss animal community. These are: Rhizopodea (comprising 36 species), Ciliatea (22), Rotatoria (13), Tardigrada (6), Zoomastigophorea (5), Phytomastigophorea (4), Nematoda (3), Gastrotricha (1) and Actinopodea (1), of which 2 species (rotifers), 1 subspecies (tardigrade) and 3 varieties (rhizopode, rotifer and tardigrade) are found to be new. But, there is no endemic species. Some descriptions of the notable species and a comparison with the previous data compiled from German, Swedish and British Expeditions were made. Further, a low temperature treatment for the regular moss-water animal community was also carried out at the same time to verify the reliability of "Antarctica Minora" as it were, recapitulated in the refrigerator of our institute. The composition of the Antarctic moss-water animal community seems to be not so peculiar, for a similar relation is also involved in the regular moss-water communities, in spite of the fact that the Antarctic moss-fauna is characterized by a dormancy of several animal groups. The characteristics of the Antarctic moss-water community - if present - should be understood only through the frequency of occurrence of each species to a level not higher than the species in taxonomic classification for the following reasons: 1) The species component within each four drops of water is highly variable, depending upon the condition of the moss collected, 2) the presence-absence problem, especially, the decision against 'absent' is not so fixed, and 3) each moss-water animal looks potentially cosmopolitan.