Zooplankton

Abstract

Despite their key role in supporting important ecosystem functions in tropical wetlands, explorative and taxonomical studies on tropical zooplankton are still limited. This obstructs accurate comparisons between biogeographical regions and different wetland types. With this review, we integrated current knowledge on patterns of species richness and endemicity across (sub)tropical biogeographical regions and summarized the most important characteristics of the ecology, life history and conservation aspects of rotifer, cladoceran, copepod, and ostracod zooplankton groups. This first effort toward a complete review of zooplankton at the scale of the tropical regions will seed future studies.