Nematodes are incontestably the most numerous and the most diverse metazoans in freshwater habitats, and these properties bestow exceptional significance to their role in the environment. An array of functional roles has been attributed to them: they are grazers on bacteria and primary producers, regulators of decomposition of plant material, predators, prey for other animals, and closely associated symbionts of bacteria and other organisms.
Freshwater nematodes are central in the context of environmental monitoring, pollution assessments, global warming and food webs, and this is increasingly being recognized. Moreover, the short generation time (a few days to months) of many species makes nematodes ideal for laboratory studies. This book:
- Provides a follow-up to Freshwater Nematodes: Ecology and Taxonomy (2006).
- Offers guidelines for studying the ecology of free-living nematodes, including detailed protocols and case studies.
- Promotes free-living nematodes as model organisms for studies in a broad range of research fields.
Despite the recognized importance of nematodes across ecosystems, many species of free-living nematodes have yet to be discovered, and essential knowledge gaps remain. Ecology of Freshwater Nematodes provides an overview of research efforts in this field, and is an important resource for researchers in the field of nematology and ecology.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Freshwater Nematodes in Ecology: Current Knowledge and Research
Chapter 2. Sampling and Processing of Freshwater Nematodes with Emphasis on Molecular Methods
Chapter 3. Species Composition and Distribution of Free-living Nematodes in Lakes and Streams
Chapter 4. Nematodes from Extreme and Unusual Freshwater Habitats
Chapter 5. Dispersal of Free-living Nematodes
Chapter 6. Feeding Ecology of Free-living Nematodes
Chapter 7. Role of Nematodes in the Food Web: Nematodes as Predator and Prey
Chapter 8. Production of Freshwater Nematodes
Chapter 9. Freshwater Nematodes in Metacommunity Studies
Chapter 10. Single- and Multi-species Toxicity Testing with Nematodes
Chapter 11. Freshwater Nematodes as Bioindicators in Field Studies – The NemaSPEAR[%]-index
Chapter 12. Case Studies with Nematodes from the Individual to Ecosystem Level