Zooplankton of the open Baltic: Extended Atlas - IOW

Although rotifers can be considered as a relatively small phylum, they
are extremely important in the environments that they inhabit because their
reproductive rates are fastest for any metazoan (Nogrady et al., 1993). They
can populate vacant niches with exceptional rapidity, convert primary (algal)
and bacterial production into a form usable for secondary consumers (e.g.
insect larvae and fish fry), and perform this transformation with remarkable
efficiency producing up to 95% of total zooplankton biomass (e.g. in rivers
and estuaries) (Telesh, 1995; Telesh & Heerkloss, 2002).
Figure 5.1.6. General structure of trophi, dorsal view: RA – ramus,
UN – uncus, MAN – manubrium, FU – fulcrum, AL – alula (after Telesh &
Heerkloss, 2002).
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