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Small Water Bodies (small + water_body)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	80%

Selected Abstracts

Small water bodies in Bangladesh

AREA, Issue 2 2010
K M Shariful Huda
Excavations are easy in the soft, unconsolidated sediments of Bangladesh and are widespread for the creation of raised, flood-free homestead platforms. Small water bodies form in the resulting hollows and are used for fisheries, livestock management, irrigation, bathing and washing clothes. Despite their importance to everyday life, there is no up-to-date inventory or monitoring. The paper uses remote sensing, GIS and a number of qualitative data collection techniques to reconstruct the pattern of small water bodies in Shahjadpur thana. It concludes that there has been an expansion in their number, but no systematic planning of their use. [source]

The Branchiopoda (Crustacea: Anomopoda, Ctenopoda and Cyclestherida) of the rain forests of Cameroon, West Africa: low abundances, few endemics and a boreal,tropical disjunction

JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 9 2005
George Y. Chiambeng
Abstract Aim, We provide the first in-depth study of the Branchiopoda of the rain forests of Cameroon and also of the African continent. Location, Surface water environments, Cameroon. Methods, Qualitative plankton samples were collected in all types of surface water environments present, ranging from big lakes to water collected in rock crevices or fallen fruit cavities. A tow or hand-held plankton net of mesh size 100 ,m was used, and water volumes filtered were at least several m3 in large water bodies, or half to whole water volume in small water bodies. Results, We recorded 61 species (53 first records for the country), based on 700+ samples collected between September 1998 and March 2002. Anomopoda (92%) was the dominant order, followed by Ctenopoda (6.5%) and Cyclestherida (1.5%). Chydoridae (67%) was the most speciose family followed by Macrothricidae (6.5%) and Daphniidae (5%). Alona (11%) was the dominant genus followed by Chydorus (10%) and Pleuroxus (8%). Several species of Chydorinae, especially of the genus Pleuroxus, are shared with continental Eurasia,North America, but are absent from the Mediterranean and desert,steppe,savanna zones of Africa (boreal,tropical disjunction). Daphnia was absent, as in most tropical lowlands. No single species was really abundant, and a majority were rare to very rare, and of restricted occurrence within the rain forest patches. Comparing Africa, South America and Southeast Asia, we found a current total of 196 species for the combined rain forest areas, out of a world total of 500+ species. Systematic trends in richness at three taxonomic levels were the same for all continents: Anomopoda,Ctenopoda,Cyclestherida at ordinal level, Chydoridae,Daphniidae,Macrothricidae,Sididae at family level and Alona,Chydorus,Macrothrix,Diaphanosoma at genus level. Southeast Asia was richest (111 species, 14 endemics) with South America a close second (110 species, 27 endemics). Africa was the most species-poor (95 species, of which only 5 are endemics). Main conclusions, We hypothesize that the post-Miocene cooling and aridization of the world climate hit the freshwater biota of Africa particularly hard, with more extinction here than elsewhere, and little recolonization. Most extinction occurred in the savanna-desert belt, and eight disjunct boreal species (four Pleuroxus, Picripleuroxus laevis, Kurzia latissima, Alonella exigua, and Monospilus dispar) survive morphologically unchanged since pre-Pleistocene times in the Cameroon rain forest. Slow evolution thus appears typical of these cyclic parthenogenetic branchiopods in which sexual recombination occurs only at intervals. Illustrative of the same slow evolution is the fact that the two endemic cladocerans of Cameroon (Nicsmirnovius camerounensis and Bryospilus africanus) belong to tropicopolitan genera of Gondwanan age. [source]

Small water bodies in Bangladesh

Morphological divergence of North-European nine-spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius): signatures of parallel evolution

BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010
GÁBOR HERCZEG
Parallel evolution is characterised by repeated, independent occurrences of similar phenotypes in a given habitat type, in different parts of the species distribution area. We studied body shape and body armour divergence between five marine, four lake, and ten pond populations of nine-spined sticklebacks [Pungitius pungitius (Linnaeus, 1758)] in Fennoscandia. We hypothesized that marine and lake populations (large water bodies, diverse fish fauna) would be similar, whereas sticklebacks in isolated ponds (small water bodies, simple fish fauna) would be divergent. We found that pond fish had deeper bodies, shorter caudal peduncles, and less body armour (viz. shorter/absent pelvic spines, reduced/absent pelvic girdle, and reduced number of lateral plates) than marine fish. Lake fish were intermediate, but more similar to marine than to pond fish. Results of our common garden experiment concurred with these patterns, suggesting a genetic basis for the observed divergence. We also found large variation among populations within habitat types, indicating that environmental variables other than those related to gross habitat characteristics might also influence nine-spined stickleback morphology. Apart from suggesting parallel evolution of morphological characteristics of nine-spined sticklebacks in different habitats, the results also show a number of similarities to the evolution of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus Linnaeus, 1758) morphology. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 101, 403,416. [source]