''Keratella cochlearis'' is a

rotifer The rotifers (, from Latin 'wheel' and 'bearing'), sometimes called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera ) of microscopic and near-microscopic Coelom#Pseudocoelomates, pseudocoelomate animals. They were first describ ...

. The

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...

ic animal occurs worldwide in

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...

and

marine habitats A marine habitat is a habitat that supports marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the saltwater that is in the sea (the term ''marine'' comes from the Latin ''mare'', meaning sea or ocean). A habitat is an ecological or environmen ...

Description

''Keratella cochlearis'' has an oval lorica, a shell-like protective outer cuticle. At the anterior end are three pairs of spines. The central pair curve towards the ventral surface, the next pair diverge slightly and the outer pair converge. There is a single red eye There is also a central funnel-shaped mouth and on either side of this are rings of

cilia The cilium (: cilia; ; in Medieval Latin and in anatomy, ''cilium'') is a short hair-like membrane protrusion from many types of eukaryotic cell. (Cilia are absent in bacteria and archaea.) The cilium has the shape of a slender threadlike proj ...

which twirl and help waft food particles into the mouth. They are also used for locomotion. There are two forms of this rotifer; some individuals have a long spine at the posterior end and others do not. Neither form has a foot. Fish01

Distribution

''Keratella cochlearis'' is found worldwide in marine, brackish and freshwater habitats. Any body of standing water is likely to contain rotifers and ''Keratella cochlearis'' is probably the most common and widespread species in the world.

Life cycle

''Keratella cochlearis'' is

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

, with female specimens being larger than males. Typically, reproduction in this species is by

parthenogenesis Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek + ) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which the embryo develops directly from an egg without need for fertilization. In animals, parthenogenesis means the development of an embryo from an unfertiliz ...

. In this process, the female rotifer produces an unfertilised egg with a full set of

chromosome A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most import ...

s. This is carried around by the mother and hatches into a miniature adult. Whether the offspring has a posterior spine or not seems to depend on the number of

predators Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

in the body of water where the rotifer lives. If predation rates are high, spined "typica" forms are produced, but if low, spineless forms known as "tecta" develop. Tecta females can produce typica offspring and vice versa. It has also been found that different forms tend to predominate at different times of year. In the winter, most individuals have a long spine at the posterior end. As the spring advanced, the spine shortens and by July it is very short or non-existent. During the remaining months of the year it gradually lengthens once more. These changes take place over several generations as each individual rotifer has a lifespan of just a few days or weeks. Periodically

sexual reproduction Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote tha ...

takes place. It is not known why this occurs at some times and not others. The female undergoes

meiosis Meiosis () is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, the sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately result in four cells, each with only one c ...

and produces eggs with half the usual number of chromosomes. Some of these develop into male rotifers. Each of these is able to inseminate another of these eggs to restore the full complement of chromosomes in the offspring.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q150192 Brachionidae Taxa named by Philip Henry Gosse