Phylum: Rotifera<\/em> Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n Rotifers are multi-cellular and microscopic zooplankton that can typically reach a length of 160 micrometers long, but range primarily from 0.1-1.5 mm long in length.\u00a0They come from a\u00a0phylum\u00a0called\u00a0Rotifera <\/em>that contains\u00a0as many as 2,200\u00a0species described and in Latin are known as “wheel-bearers”. This refers to the characteristic crown of cilia on the anterior end called the corona, which acts like a\u00a0wheel spinning vortex\u00a0for catching prey. There\u00a0has, however, been\u00a0difficulty\u00a0in recognizing\u00a0species of rotifers when they aren’t feeding because they only open their mouth when prey is nearby. As a result, the rotifers’ taxonomy is still being researched and at the moment can only be classified by three different classes: bdelloidea, Seisonidea, and Monogononta. However, this is one of the many unusual body structures of the rotifers that attracted microbiologists and\u00a0scientists like Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a 17th<\/sup> century Dutch\u00a0scientist. He was the first to clearly\u00a0describe this aquatic organism in history based on observations of them in a journal entry from October 17, 1687.<\/p>\n Biology and Ecology<\/strong><\/p>\n Sketch of rotifer (tiny oval) in sewage water environment<\/p><\/div>\n Rotifers reside\u00a0both in freshwater and brackish marine ecosystems all around the world except polar regions\u00a0but few species, such as\u00a0Collotheca<\/em>, have\u00a0also\u00a0been\u00a0found in\u00a0moist soils and mosses\u00a0around trees.\u00a0Their\u00a0very soft bodies help them retract in order to move around in the water\u00a0and tilt their heads more quickly while feeding. In the moist soil,\u00a0the Collotheca<\/em> rotifers are sessile, or\u00a0live independently in one place for the rest of their lives. To accomplish this, they use\u00a0a long string of cilia at the end of their tail to attach themselves to any nearby surface or aquatic plant.\u00a0After their eggs are laid in the water, the hatchlings attach themselves with temporary cilia on their tail. However, due to their soft bodies, it’s also been hard for scientists to find evidence of fossils that existed millions of years ago. Therefore, they depend mainly on the only hard part of the rotifer’s\u00a0body: their\u00a0jaw. The jaw is hard but so tiny that there was evidence of species from 1,000 years ago scientists discovered recently.<\/p>\n Rotifers still have a lot of mysteries to be discovered in their classification system, but their dependence on algae and decomposed bacteria has created a special significance to us today. All around the world, eutrophication, or the release of excess nutrients from fertilizers, is causing the oxygen levels in the water to decrease and kill organisms dependent on it.\u00a0As a result, rotifers have been found to be quite useful in dirty, sewage water filled with organic waste because they eat the decomposed bacteria that also\u00a0eat\u00a0the nutrients and balance the water’s\u00a0biological oxygen demand (BOD).\u00a0When prey, such as protozoans or\u00a0algae,\u00a0is spotted, rotifers suck the 10 micrometer-long particles\u00a0into their mouth, grind them up like a paper-shredder, and release the remains as respiration back into the water. If we can still dependent on these little organisms for balancing the oxygen levels in sewage and wastewater, there would be little problems on dirty drinking water and lack of fish dying from little oxygen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Animation of bdelloid rotifer in its environment<\/p><\/div>\n References<\/b><\/p>\n by Brianna Gage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2358,"featured_media":1042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,29,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adaptability","category-cosmopolitan_species","category-zooplankton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Class: various (Bdelloidea<\/em>)
Order: various (Bdelloida)<\/em>
Family: various (Habrotrochidae<\/em>)
Genus: various (Habrotrocha)<\/em>
Species: various (H. bidens<\/em>)
Common name: Bdelloid Rotifer<\/p>\n\n
![\"Rough](\"http:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2015\/11\/Scan-7-e1448990497897.jpeg\")
<\/a>Rough sketch of bdelloid rotifer about 1250 micrometers long and 125 micrometers wide.<\/h6>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/h6>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
<\/a>Significance to the 21st Century<\/h5>\n
<\/a>\n