Freshwater Crustacea (Cladocera, Copepoda) of Iceland: taxonomy, ecology, and biogeography

Abstract

Of the many types of freshwater bodies across Iceland (e.g., lakes, springs, rivers, and ponds), greater effort has been invested in researching the freshwater Crustacea (Cladocera, Copepoda) of more permanent, larger, and deeper water bodies than on smaller or more ephemeral sites. To address this, we described the fauna of 12 shallow freshwater bodies distributed from the coast to the central highlands of Iceland. We identified 16 species in 11 genera belonging to six families of Cladocera, and 12 species in eight genera belonging to four families of Copepoda. Five of the species we identified (Alona werestschagini, Cyclops vicinus, Daphnia cristata, Diacyclops abyssicola, and Heterocope borealis) represent new distribution records for Iceland, increasing the number of species now known from this region to 34 Cladocera and 38 Copepoda taxa. Additionally, we discuss the taxonomy of some species with doubtful taxonomical status. Six crustacean taxocenes are described, each characterized by the dominance of different taxa, with bottom sediment characteristics best explaining species assemblage structure. We evaluated the relationships between Icelandic Cladocera and Copepoda faunas and those of the adjacent Svalbard, Faroe, and Shetland Islands, Greenland, and the mainland Norway. The taxonomic composition of the Icelandic fauna is dominated by widely distributed Holarctic, and secondarily Palaearctic and Nearctic species, and is more similar to the faunas of the major North Atlantic islands (64.2–71.8 % similarity) than it is to that of continental Norway.