Turbellarian taxonomic database

Record # 17903
Author
Title
Journal
Therriault TW, Kolasa J (1999)
New species and records of microturbellarians from coastal rock pools of Jamaica, West Indies
Archiv fuer Hydrobiologie 144(3):371-381

Abstract / Notes

"A system of small erosional pools formed on the coastal rocks of the Jamaican north shore is home to many
invertebrate species. The fauna of the pools comprises a rarely reported mixture of species from both marine
and freshwater habitats. Turbellarians identified include six species of which two, belonging to the genus
Gieysztoria, are new. One species, Gyratrix hermaphroditus, is a habitat generalist and occurs in a number of
pools with markedly different physical and morphological characteristics. The other five species have a more
restricted distribution and appear to be habitat specialists within the rock pool system. Both temperature
and salinity strongly affect the local distribution of microturbellarians. The total number of brackish and
freshwater species of microturbellarians reported from the Caribbean islands thus increases to nine, a very
low number by comparison to any other geographical area, even a single lake."

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