Humans alter biogeochemical cycles of essential elements such as phosphorus (P). Prediction of ecosystem consequences of altered elemental cycles requires integration of ecology, evolutionary biology and the framework of ecological stoichiometry. We studied micro-evolutionary responses of a herbivorous rotifer to P-limited food and the potential consequences for its population demography and fo...

Co-occurrence of cryptic species raises theoretically relevant questions regarding their coexistence and ecological similarity. Given their great morphological similitude and close phylogenetic relationship (i.e., niche retention), these species will have similar ecological requirements and are expected to have strong competitive interactions. This raises the problem of finding the mechanisms t...

Unveiling the mechanisms that promote coexistence in biological communities is a fundamental problem in ecology. Stable coexistence of many species is commonly observed in natural communities. Most of these natural communities, however, are composed of species from multiple trophic and functional groups, while theory and experiments on coexistence have been focusing on functionally similar spec...

Rotifers have often been used as indicators of sudden changes in physical and chemical features of the aquatic environment. Such features vary greatly during flood pulse events in small lakes connected to major floodplains. However, few are the studies that investigate the consequences of the flood pulse in rotifer species composition, abundance, richness and diversity, especially in Amazonian ...

Axenic rotifers were cultured under synxenic conditions on a bacteria-free artificial diet. The cultures were inoculated either with one of four strains of cultured marine bacteria, or with mixtures of bacteria made up with the same four strains and differing only in the proportions of cells from each strain within the blends. Control cultures were inoculated with bacteria present in Ž . freshl...

To estimate the changes in the life history of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis O.F. Müller under starvation, we carried out an individual culture and determined the effects of periodical food deprivation on its asexual reproductive characteristics such as lifespan, reproductive period, age at first egg and offspring production, and lifetime fecundity (total number of offspring produced in her...

Life-history traits may have an important role in promoting species coexistence. However, the complexity of certain life cycles makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the conditions for coexistence or exclusion based on the study of short-term competitive dynamics. Brachionus plicatilis and B. manjavacasare two cryptic rotifer species co-occurring in many lakes on the Iberian Peninsula. T...

Ž . Axenic rotifers Brachionus plicatilis Muller were cultured under aseptic conditions; they ̈ Ž . were fed either a bacteria-free artificial diet AD , or axenic Isochrysis galbana, or a combination of axenic Chlorella minutissima and the bacteria-free AD. The medium was inoculated with commercial bacterial additives or cultured strains of marine bacteria. The highest improvements in Ž . growth...

Despite their high morphological similarity, cryptic species often coexist in aquatic habitats presenting a challenge in the framework of niche differentiation theory and coexistence mechanisms. Here we use a rotifer species complex inhabiting highly unpredictable and fluctuating salt lakes to gain insights into the mechanisms involved in stable coexistence in cryptic species. We combined molec...