Romero & Mondragón 2012 (Conference Paper) Animals

Bromeliad freshwater Meiofauna community from Pine-oak Forest.

Author(s):—M. Romero & D. Mondragón

Publication:— (2012).

Abstract:—Main meiofauna (500-1000μm) by abundance and functionality are Cladocera, Copepoda, Rotifera and Tardigrada, common inhabitants of freshwater bodies were are key components to energy transfer from detritus, algae and bacteria to bigger animals as fish larvae, acari, nematods, quironomids and the large insect community, with an important and very complex ecological role. In tropical forests, tank-bromeliads community could accumulate large amounts of freshwater for unpredictable amount of time and host a wide variety of animals non-permanent such insects, vertebrates but also permanent as meiofauna. Insects are extensively studied, otherwise meiofauna community is poorly unknown and few ecological data were reported. Our interest is to know the composition and richness of meiofauna community in epiphytic tank-bromeliads and relationship between plant size parameters and meiofauna richness. We collected the whole water accumulated in 60 tank-bromeliads belonging to Tillandsia carlos-hankii, T. violacea and T. prodigiosa in dry and wet seasons during 2008 (10/bromeliad sp./season), we restricted to looking for main functional meiofauna: Cladocera, Copepoda, Rotifera and Tardigrada from a pine-oak forest at 2400 as in Oaxaca, México. We founded 15 species, belonging two Cladocera, three Copepoda, two Rotifera and eight Tardigrada. Both bromeliad size and structure influence meiofauna composition and richness; a PCA show a tendency of bigger plants (tank size, plant highness and inflorescence length) to host bigger meiofauna richness. We found higher richness in dry season instead wet season. Are the second Tardigrada and the four Cladocera records from tank-bromeliads worldwide; we found bigger richness of these meiofauna rather other countries worldwide and a new species of Rotifera.