Rotifers ─ Rotifera Monogononta

Rotifers (Rotifera) are animals which occur in every type of aquatic environment, both marine and freshwater. They owe their wide distribution to rapid reproduction. Due to their abundance, they play an important role in freshwater ecosystems. There are around 2000 rotifer species, 1350 of them from Europe. This book provides a guide to rotifers, including topics such as the origin of rotifers, taxonomy and systematics, morphology, anatomy, biology, ecology, zoogeography, and methods of sample collection, preservation, storage, and processing. It also provides information on orders, families and genera, as well as a survey of species, based on illustrations including many original color micrographs. In total, over 460 rotifer species found in Poland are presented and characterized, as well as over 140 species found in neighboring countries.

Stanislaw Radwan was a prominent Polish hydrobiologist and a professor at the Agricultural Academy in Lublin (now known as the University of Life Science). He was known internationally as the leader of the Lublin school of hydrobiology and as an outstanding expert on rotifers and the ecology and conservation of lacustrine systems.

Irena Bielanska-Grajner is an associate professor at the University of Silesia in the faculty of biology and environmental protection, department of hydrobiology. She studies the taxonomy, biology and ecology of Rotifera, especially plankton rotifers in mining reservoirs and psammon and moss-loving rotifers on peatbogs.

Jolanta Ejsmont-Karabin is the head of the Hydrobiological Station in Mikolajki and associate professor at the Institute of Biology, University of Bialystok. Her interests include ecology of Rotifera in all types of freshwaters, especially eutrophication and the diversity of rotifer communities in open waters, benthic microhabitats of lake littorals, and the spatial and temporal structure of psammon communities.