Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) Diversity In The Middle And Upper Areas Of The Yellow River

To understand the Cladocera diversity in upper middle area of the Yellow River,58fresh-water bodies from five provinces (Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia,Shanxi) were sampled in July,2011,48species of Cladocera were identified, belongto23Genus,8Families. To investigate the relationship between Cladocera and waterbodies, took samples from81water bodies in Winter Green Lake area (InnerMongolia) and plateau (Qinghai province) in June of2012, environmental factorssuch as pH and DO were measured.26species of Cladocera were identified, amongthem two species was not found in the samples collected in2011. According to thesamples from two years, Cladocera with49species belong to24Genus,8familieswere identified in total, include3endemic species of plateau: Daphnia magna,Pleuroxus annandelei, Chydorus undulates.Altitude of the study water bodies range from311m to4460m, the waters coveralmost all types of upper middle area of Yellow River, such as lakes, reservoirs, vetlands, poosl, ponds, streams, ditchs, rice fields, some of them are temporary pools.The identified species from the diverse waterbodies largely present the regionaldiversity. Using software EstimateS we analyzed the samples from Qinghai provinceand estimate the species number, it showed there exist theoretically54species, butonly half the number of species (27species) were observed in our survevys in thisarea. This difference between estimation and observation requires more samples inspace and time.Sampling in the temporary water-bodies in Winter-Green Lake area (InnerMongolia) and plateau (Qinghai province), the common species of this two area aresimilar, but the dominant species are different. Ceriodaphnia reticulate is thedominant species of Winter-Green Lake area, but Daphnia magna being dominant inQinghai plateau, this difference may be attributed to different of altitude (temperature)and predators.