Hello everyone, if we want to work on toxicity assessment using Daphnia Magna, how can we distinguish Daphnia magna from other species such as Daphnia pulex which obtained from lakes/ponds? What are the most visual differences between them? What is the most important of characteristic of D. magna?
I am not sure what other species you need to deal with in Iran, but if you are just needing to distinguish D. pulex from D. magna, they are quite different from one another. In particular, D. magna has a distinctive deeply sinuate postabdomen (see images at the links, below). Otherwise, you will probably want to get hold of Benzie JAH (2005) Cladocera: the genus Daphnia (including Daphniopsis). Leiden, The Netherlands, Backhuys
Publishers, 376 pp
See some images here for D. magna: http://cfb.unh.edu/cfbkey/html/Organisms/CCladocera/FDaphnidae/GDaphnia/Daphnia_magna/daphniamagna.html
vs D.pulex:
http://cfb.unh.edu/cfbkey/html/Organisms/CCladocera/FDaphnidae/GDaphnia/Daphnia_pulex/daphniapulex.html
From the french key of Amoros (1984):
the dorsal ridge expands anteriorly in D magna and not in pulex
You have marked lateral expansions on the head in magna and not in pulex
There is a notch in the middle of the dorsal part (the side of the claws) of the abdominal leg in magna and not in pulex
The rostrum of both the species is also different, though, there is a lot of morphological variation. As suggested before, you can refer to the book by Benzie (2005)
The most significant criteria of distinction between D. magna and D. pulex is a postabdomen. Postabdomen of D. magna is thinned in its upper part (see below).
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