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Mound Springs Of The Swan Coastal Plain
Assemblages of plants and invertebrate animals of tumulus (organic mound) springs of the Swan Coastal Plain are ecological communities in Western Australia. They have been managed under a number of other, similar names, including Mound springs of the Swan Coastal Plain and Communities of Tumulus Springs (Organic Mound Springs, Swan Coastal Plain). The tumulus mounds were common to a narrow range of groundwater discharge at the boundary of 'bassendean sand' and 'guildford clay', along the edge of the Gnangara Mound aquifer. The communities are critically endangered. Description At the edge of the Gnangara Mound, where heavy guildford clays meet the bassandean dune system, bogs and swamps are created by the discharge of water from this aquifer. The clay and sand intersection on the Swan Coastal Plain, near the Darling Scarp, also produces permanent springs, giving rise to peat and sand mounds containing plant and invertebrate assemblages. The continuing vegetative growth produces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biocoenosis
A biocenosis (UK English, ''biocoenosis'', also biocenose, biocoenose, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, life assemblage), coined by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes the interacting organisms living together in a habitat (biotope). Möbius, Karl. 1877. ''Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft.'' Verlag von Wiegandt, Hemple & Parey: Berlin (English translation: The Oyster and Oyster Farming. ''U.S. Commission Fish and Fisheries Report'', 1880: 683-751) The use of this term has declined in the 21st сentury. In the palaeontological literature, the term distinguishes "life assemblages", which reflect the original living community, living together at one place and time. In other words, it is an assemblage of fossils or a community of specific time, which is different from "death assemblages" ( thanatocoenoses).e.g. Ager, 1963, Principles of Palaeoecology No palaeontological assemblage will ever completely represent the original biological community (i.e. t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioregion
A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the term in a rank-less generalist sense, similar to the terms "biogeographic area" or "biogeographic unit". It may be conceptually similar to an ecoprovince. It is also differently used in the environmentalist context, being coined by Berg and Dasmann (1977). WWF bioregions The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) scheme divides some of the biogeographic realms into bioregions, defined as "geographic clusters of ecoregions that may span several habitat types, but have strong biogeographic affinities, particularly at taxonomic levels higher than the species level (genus, family)." The WWF bioregions are as follows: * Afrotropical realm **Western Africa and Sahel **Central Africa **Eastern and Southern Africa ** Horn of Africa **Madagascar–I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turbellaria
The Turbellaria are one of the traditional sub-divisions of the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms), and include all the sub-groups that are not exclusively parasitic. There are about 4,500 species, which range from to large freshwater forms more than long or terrestrial species like ''Bipalium kewense'' which can reach in length. All the larger forms are flat with ribbon-like or leaf-like shapes, since their lack of respiratory system, respiratory and circulatory system, circulatory systems means that they have to rely on diffusion for internal transport of metabolites. However, many of the smaller forms are round in cross section. Most are predators, and all live in water or in moist terrestrial environments. Most forms reproduce sexual reproduction, sexually and with few exceptions all are hermaphrodites, simultaneous hermaphrodites. The Acoelomorpha and the genus ''Xenoturbella'' were formerly included in the Turbellaria, but are no longer regarded as Platyhelminthes. All th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tardigrada
Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbär ("little water bear"). In 1777, the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani named them Tardigrada (), which means "slow steppers". They have been found in diverse regions of Earth's biospheremountaintops, the deep sea, tropical rainforests, and the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Tardigrades have survived exposure to outer space. There are about 1,300 known species in the phylum Tardigrada, a part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa consisting of animal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligochaeta
Oligochaeta () is a subclass of animals in the phylum Annelida, which is made up of many types of aquatic and terrestrial worms, including all of the various earthworms. Specifically, oligochaetes comprise the terrestrial megadrile earthworms (some of which are semiaquatic or fully aquatic), and freshwater or semiterrestrial microdrile forms, including the tubificids, pot worms and ice worms ( Enchytraeidae), blackworms ( Lumbriculidae) and several interstitial marine worms. With around 10,000 known species, the Oligochaeta make up about half of the phylum Annelida. These worms usually have few setae (chaetae) or "bristles" on their outer body surfaces, and lack parapodia, unlike polychaeta. Diversity Oligochaetes are well-segmented worms and most have a spacious body cavity (coelom) used as a hydroskeleton. They range in length from less than up to in the 'giant' species such as the giant Gippsland earthworm (''Megascolides australis'') and the Mekong worm (''Amynth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copepoda
Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have parasitic phases, and some continental species may live in limnoterrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests, bogs, springs, ephemeral ponds, and puddles, damp moss, or water-filled recesses (phytotelmata) of plants such as bromeliads and pitcher plants. Many live underground in marine and freshwater caves, sinkholes, or stream beds. Copepods are sometimes used as biodiversity indicators. As with other crustaceans, copepods have a larval form. For copepods, the egg hatches into a nauplius form, with a head and a tail but no true thorax or abdomen. The larva molts several times until it resembles the adult and then, after more molts, achieves adult development. The nauplius form is so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cladocera
The Diplostraca or Cladocera, commonly known as water fleas, are a superorder of small crustaceans that feed on microscopic chunks of organic matter (excluding some predatory forms). Over 1000 species have been recognised so far, with many more undescribed. The oldest fossils of diplostracans date to the Jurassic, though their modern morphology suggests that they originated substantially earlier, during the Paleozoic. Some have also adapted to a life in the ocean, the only members of Branchiopoda to do so, even if several anostracans live in hypersaline lakes. Most are long, with a down-turned head with a single median compound eye, and a carapace covering the apparently unsegmented thorax and abdomen. Most species show cyclical parthenogenesis, where asexual reproduction is occasionally supplemented by sexual reproduction, which produces resting eggs that allow the species to survive harsh conditions and disperse to distant habitats. Description They are mostly long, with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nematoda
The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant-parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments. Less formally, they are categorized as Helminths, but are taxonomically classified along with arthropods, tardigrades and other moulting animals in the clade Ecdysozoa, and unlike flatworms, have tubular digestive systems with openings at both ends. Like tardigrades, they have a reduced number of Hox genes, but their sister phylum Nematomorpha has kept the ancestral protostome Hox genotype, which shows that the reduction has occurred within the nematode phylum. Nematode species can be difficult to distinguish from one another. Consequently, estimates of the number of nematode species described to date vary by author and may change rapidly over time. A 2013 survey of animal biodiversity published in the mega jou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostracoda
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a class of the Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 70,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant) have been identified, grouped into several orders. They are small crustaceans, typically around in size, but varying from in the case of ''Gigantocypris''. Their bodies are flattened from side to side and protected by a bivalve-like, chitinous or calcareous valve or "shell". The hinge of the two valves is in the upper (dorsal) region of the body. Ostracods are grouped together based on gross morphology. While early work indicated the group may not be monophyletic and early molecular phylogeny was ambiguous on this front, recent combined analyses of molecular and morphological data found support for monophyly in analyses with broadest taxon sampling. Ecologically, marine ostracods can be part of the zooplankton or (most commonly) are part of the benthos, living on or inside the upper layer of the sea floor. While Myodocop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acarina
Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evidence of a close relationship. Most mites are tiny, less than in length, and have a simple, unsegmented body plan. The small size of most species makes them easily overlooked; some species live in water, many live in soil as decomposers, others live on plants, sometimes creating galls, while others again are predators or parasites. This last type includes the commercially destructive ''Varroa'' parasite of honey bees, as well as scabies mites of humans. Most species are harmless to humans, but a few are associated with allergies or may transmit diseases. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of mites is called acarology. Evolution and taxonomy The mites are not a defined taxon, but is used for two distinct groups of arachnids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faunal
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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