title: What´s in the tank? Nematodes and other major components of the meiofauna of bromeliad phytotelms in lowland Panama.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nematodes are a very diverse and extremely abundant group of animals, but their occurrence in the tropics is surprisingly little understood. We investigated the meiofauna of epiphytic tank bromeliads in the lowlands of Panama with particular emphasis on nematodes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We encountered 89 morphospecies of nematodes in 54 bromeliad tanks, which were sampled in the wet and the dry season. Rotifers were by far the most abundant group in both the dry and the wet season (with up to 960 individual ml(-1)), followed by nematodes, annelids and harpacticoid copepods. Individual plants hosted up to 25 nematode species. These nematodes represented a diversity of feeding guilds, suction-feeders and deposit-feeders being most abundant. The relative abundances of feeding-types of nematodes differed considerably in the wet and dry season. Both species richness and abundance were strongly correlated with the size of the phytotelms and the season, while species diversity assessed with the Shannon-index was affected by neither of the two.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first study with a particular focus on the diversity of nematodes in tank bromeliads. We document a meiofauna of considerable abundance and diversity, which suggests important functional roles in ecological processes such as decomposition, which in turn warrants further study.
authors.affiliation: Functional Ecology Group, Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences, University of Oldenburg, Box 2503, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany.|Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Apartado Postal 0843-03092, Balboa, Republica de Panama.
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zotz
authors.affiliation: Animal Ecology, University of Bielefeld, Konsequenz 45, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany. traunspurger@uni-bielefeld.de.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Traunspurger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D031229:Bromeliaceae / Q000502:physiology*; D017753:Ecosystem; D009348:Nematoda / Q000502:physiology*; D010176:Panama; D012621:Seasons
keywords: Barro Colorado island; Bromeliaceae; Habitat size; Island biogeography; Nematodes; Phytotelms; Rotatoria; Werauhia sanguinolenta