A georeferenced dataset for occurrence records of the phylum Rotifera in Africa

Lopez, Zacarias Fresno; Cancellario, Tommaso; Fontaneto, Diego; Kamburska, Lyudmila; Karimullah, Karimullah; Wallace, Robert L.; Walsh, Elizabeth J.; Smolak, Radoslav

doi:10.4081/jlimnol.2023.2116

Cited by 3 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 392 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…As the source data for rotifer distribution, we used a freely available dataset from the Open Science Framework (OSF) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This dataset comprises ~27,500 records of rotifer occurrence in Africa, where 957 taxa from 706 published papers were collated [9].…”

Section: Effect Of Climate Conditions On Species Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent review by Fresno Lopez et al [9] compiled records of rotifer distribution in 41 African countries and seven nearby islands; however, no records are yet available for another dozen countries. We included 27 of the best studied African countries (26 inland countries and Madagascar, where at least five publications with rotifers were recorded) for species distribution analyses.…”

Section: Effect Of Climate Conditions On Species Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The African countries with the highest number of reported records and taxa are Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Egypt. No records are currently available for 12 African countries [9]. It is noteworthy that the ten most studied countries also have the highest reported species richness, thus the 'rotiferologist' effect is very evident for Africa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the World Rotifer Catalog [8], the PAL region contains 1688 valid taxa (1292 monogononts, 394 bdelloids, and 2 species of Seison) [8]. The most recent checklist (based on data published before 2023) of rotifers from the African continent and nearby islands is comprised of 957 valid taxa (789 monogononts, 167 bdelloids, and 1 seisonid) [9]. Thus, the diversity of the known African rotifers is ~56% of the PAL region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving Aquatic Biodiversity Estimates in Africa: Rotifers of Angola and Ghana

Smolak,

Brown,

Walsmith

et al. 2024

Diversity

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Afrotropical inland waters are highly diverse ecosystems; however, they remain poorly studied, especially for rotifers. Here, we contributed to the knowledge of the rotifer species richness in the largely understudied African countries of Angola and Ghana. We assessed the roles of habitat type and a suite of abiotic environmental factors in determining rotifer species richness of Ghana. A total of 37 sites (Ghana 32, Angola 5) in 19 water bodies from a variety of aquatic habitat types were sampled. In Ghana, we identified 118 taxa (105 species or subspecies level, 13 identified to genus). We identified 15 taxa (13 species) in the Angola samples. For Ghana, 100 of 118 (~85%) taxa were new records for the country, of which 13 species (~11%) were also new records for Africa. Nearly all the species (~93%) were new records for Angola. Species richness was positively correlated with conductivity and reservoir habitat type and negatively with pH. Redundancy analysis (RDA), conducted at the species level for the Ghana dataset, indicated suites of species associated with latitude, longitude, temperature, TDS, or pH. We also evaluated the effect of climate on species distribution in 27 African countries by conducting a review of all reports from Africa to determine factors associated with species richness. A Spearman’s correlation confirmed a significant positive correlation between the number of rotifer species and the number of climatic regions (R = 0.53, p < 0.001) for certain countries, based on species distributions in relation to Köppen–Geiger climate regions. This fact validates the environmental heterogeneity hypothesis for African rotifers. Lastly, we predicted that rotifer species richness in Ghana, as a country with a tropical climate, could approach ~190 taxa, while in climatically heterogeneous Angola we predict ~200 taxa. This study contributes to our knowledge of rotifer biogeography and species richness patterns in Africa.

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Section: Effect Of Climate Conditions On Species Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Of Climate Conditions On Species Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving Aquatic Biodiversity Estimates in Africa: Rotifers of Angola and Ghana

Smolak,

Brown,

Walsmith

et al. 2024

Diversity

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“…In contrast, comprehensive global databases are available for certain groups, such as acoels (Jondelius, 2023), platyhelminths (Tyler et al, 2022), tardigrades (Michalczyk & Kaczmarek, 2013;Kaczmarek et al, 2015), and gastrotrichs (Hummond, 2010), geographical areas (Garlaschè et al, 2020, Rubio-López et al, 2022, Curini-Galletti et al, 2023, Ferrari et al, 2023Fresno-López et al, 2023) and habitats (Martínez et al, 2018;García-Gómez et al, 2022).…”

Section: Panel II Macroecology and Biogeographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental questions in meiofauna—how small but ubiquitous animals can help to better understand Nature

Martínez García,

Bonaglia,

Di Domenico

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Meiofauna—a collective term to define microscopic animals—represent a numerically important component of biodiversity in most of Earth’s ecosystems and play a crucial role in biogeochemical cycles. Meiofauna have also been used as models to understand fundamental adaptive processes, have contributed to a better understanding of the animal’s Tree of Life, and are believed to be a treasure trove for future genomic studies. To celebrate the diversity of research topics brought to us by the term “meiofauna”, we gathered a multidisciplinary team of 42 ecologists, taxonomists, morphologists, biogeographers, molecular biologists, and scientific disseminators to list 194 fundamental questions in meiofaunal research. Then, through an online survey, 251 scientists, administrators, students, and stakeholders assisted us in reducing this list to 50 top-priority questions. Applied topics related to anthropogenic impact and climate change received the highest scores, whereas questions related to areas in development such as genomics or adaptations, received less attention. Whereas we might not be exploiting meiofauna’s full potential yet, more and more integrative approaches and technological developments will create opportunities to employ these fascinating organisms to answer broad and important questions, despite of their impediments related to their small body size. Meiofauna research agenda should balance amongst investigating general questions, addressing more specialized research topics, and generating primary data on distribution, taxonomy, traits, and DNA sequences. The geographical and taxonomic biases that have historically affected meiofaunal research can be alleviated by promoting international cooperation, open data sharing, and an increase effort in education, taxonomic training, as well as scientific communication. We hope that this will get both researchers and the general public intrigued by those small critters that constantly lurk unseen in front of us.

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