•  
  •  
 

Turkish Journal of Zoology

Abstract

In recent decades, significant changes have occurred in the composition of zooplankton, especially in the Ponto-Caspian Basin. An important component of zooplankton in this region is cladocerans of the genus Cercopagis. However, the introduction of invasive species means that many species of this genus have probably become extinct. Because their disappearance molecular study of these organisms is no longer possible. Therefore, a comparative analysis of morphological variability has become more important. We studied the morphological variability of all 12 currently known species of the genus. Samples from the Caspian, Azov, Black, and Baltic Seas were analyzed. The number of species in the genus was probably overestimated. Two species (C. beklemishevi and C. longicaudata) are likely to be first-generation individuals hatched from resting eggs of C. micronyx and C. spinicaudata, respectively. C. neonilae is perhaps a junior synonym of C. socialis, and C. anonyx is a junior synonym of C. micronyx. The geographic variation of C. pengoi suggests that the Caspian populations of this species differ significantly from all others. We propose to consider them as a separate subspecies.

Author ORCID Identifier

LARISA LITVINCHUK: 0000-0001-9624-1359

SPARTAK LITVINCHUK: 0000-0001-7447-6691

DOI

10.55730/1300-0179.3241

Keywords

Extinct species, Cladocera, Crustacea, invasive species, Ponto-Caspian diversity, zooplankton

First Page

352

Last Page

363

Publisher

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Included in

Zoology Commons

Share

COinS