Monoporeia affinis
| Monoporeia affinis | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Monoporeia | ||||||||||||
| Bousfield, 1989 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Monoporeia affinis | ||||||||||||
| ( Lindström , 1855) |
Monoporeia affinis (synonym: Pontoporeia affinis ) is a flea shrimp from the family Pontoporeiidae, which is very common in the Baltic Sea . But it can also be found in the fresh water of the Scandinavian lakes. Monoporeia affinis is the only species in the genus Monoporeia .
The flea shrimp is a relic of the last ice age . When the Scandinavian ice sheet began to melt, this species, originally native to freshwater, migrated from the Barents Sea to the Baltic Sea. There are other deposits in the Arctic.
features
Monoporeia affinis becomes up to 8 mm long. The body is laterally flattened and yellowish to white. The black eyes distinguish it from the closely related Pontoporeia femorata , which has bright red eyes and does not occur in brackish water. Monoporeia affinis has two pairs of short, strong antennae. The pereiopods are strong, equipped with bristles and widened for digging in the ground.
habitat
Monoporeia affinis colonizes the muddy substrate on the floor of the Baltic Sea in huge quantities. Often 10,000 to 20,000 individuals per square meter were found, with an average of several thousand. The flea shrimp is associated with the Baltic flat mussel Macoma balthica and together with it forms the largest part of the macrobenthos in the Baltic Sea. It feeds mainly on phytoplankton and sinking detritus, but also affects the populations of the Baltic flat mussel after the mussel larvae have settled on the ground. The flea shrimp can crack the mussel shells with its claws, but it can also hinder the settlement of the mussels by digging pipe-like structures. Only when the larvae have grown larger than 1 mm do they survive the attacks of the amphipods.
Monoporeia affinis is the main food of the giant isopods ( Saduria entomon ), the predatory polychaetes Harmonthoe sarsi and the cod .
Web links
- Aquascope: Monoporeia affinis (English, with graphic)
- The species "Monoporeia affinis" from the order of the amphipods. In: Fauna Europaea Database. European Commission under the Fifth Framework Program, accessed on February 27, 2010 .