Zooplankton species diversity in the temporary wetland system of the Savannah River Site, South Carolina, USA

Understanding how diverse species communities develop and how the species within them coexist is one of the central questions in community ecology. The temporary wetland system occurring on the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina is home to the most species rich temporary wetland zooplankton assemblage known in the world. While previous research has documented this remarkable diversity, there has been little study directed at understanding how diversity is distributed at the landscape and local scales or on investigating potential mechanisms of what has led to the high richness of this system. The collection of studies presented here examine diversity patterns in the zooplankton community, links these patterns to spatial and temporal variation, experimentally tests the effects of two important environmental factors on diversity, and describes two new species. Results indicate that long hydroperiod lengths were associated with high species richness. Wetlands with similar speci...