Introduction to Meiofauna, Part 7

Unfortunately, I have run out of pictures of our sediment friends from my own work, which means I will be wrapping up this section of the introduction to meiofauna. The gastrotrichs, shown here, are sometimes known as hairybellies or hairybacks, and are widely distributed worms that live in freshwater and marine environments. Although phylum Gastrotricha is not exceptionally diverse, gastrotrichs are important facilitators in marine food webs that link the microbial loop with the rest of the food web. The microbial loop is the process of dissolved organic carbon being used by bacteria and then transferred to higher trophic levels through consumption.

Although gastrotrichs are not significantly important to human life, they represent an important group of organisms for evolutionary biologists. Gastrotrichs help delineate the origin of pseudocoelomates--many of which have been featured in previous introductions--and help scientists understand the evolutionary connectedness of organisms. Not much, however, is known about these unique organisms, and like many of the meiofauna gastrotrichs are not featured in science classes even at the university level.

Tune in to future posts where I focus more on my research, which will be starting soon (I hope) and for more introductions into the world of marine sediments.

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