Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications
Published on: January 19, 2018
Population differentiation in Daphnia alters community assembly in experimental ponds
Jelena H Pantel1, Mathew A Leibold, Thomas E Juenger
1Department of Animal Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, USA. jhpantel@illinois.edu
Abstract:
Most studies of community assembly ignore how genetic differentiation within species affects their colonization and extinction. However, genetic differentiation in ecologically relevant traits may be substantial enough to alter the colonization and extinction processes that drive community assembly. We measured significant molecular genetic and quantitative trait differentiation among three Daphnia pulex × pulicaria populations in southwestern Michigan ponds and investigated whether this differentiation could alter the assembly of pond zooplankton communities in experimental mesocosms. In this study, we monitored the invasion success of different D. pulex × pulicaria populations after their introduction into an established zooplankton community. We also monitored the invasion success of a diverse array of zooplankton species into different D. pulex × pulicaria populations. Zooplankton community composition depended on the D. pulex × pulicaria source population. Daphnia pulex × pulicaria from one population failed to invade zooplankton communities, while those from other populations successfully invaded similar communities. If population differentiation in other species plays a role in community assembly similar to that demonstrated in our study, assembly may be more sensitive to evolutionary processes than has been previously generally considered.
Related Concept Videos
Speciation Rates
Freshwater Microbial Ecology
Formation of Species
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift
Testing a Claim about Population Proportion
There are two methods of testing a claim about a population proportion: (1) Using the sample proportion from the data where a binomial distribution is approximated to the normal distribution and (2) Using the binomial probabilities calculated from the data.
The first method uses normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution. The requirements are as follows: sample size is large...
Diversity of Protists IV

