Occurrence of Keratella cochlearis (Gosse, 1851) (Rotifera, Monogononta) on San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos Archipelago, Ecuador

Abstract

The presence of the rotifer Keratella cochlearis (Gosse, 1851) is reported in El Junco Lake, a freshwater crater lake in San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos Islands. This taxon is a known species aggregate containing both eurytopic cosmopolitans as well as local and regional endemics, but also some insufficiently documented cryptic species. This record is the first of a representative of the aggregate for the rotifer fauna of the Galápagos Islands. Considering that the animal is now being recorded from the lake while earlier surveys did not, and the high dispersal capacity of many rotifers, we hypothesize that the organism recorded is one of the more widespread members of the aggregate, which colonized El Junco Lake only recently.