D Christopher Rogers

• PhD
• Invertebrate Zoologist at GRDA Scenic Rivers & Watershed Research Laboratory

The brine shrimp Artemia, a crustacean adapted to the extreme conditions of hypersaline environments, comprises nine regionally distributed sexual species scattered (island-like) over heterogeneous environments and asexual (parthenogenetic) lineages with different ploidies. Such sexual and asexual interaction within the genus raises questions regar...

Saline lakes are hypersensitive to changes in their water balance and therefore show amplified responses to climatic and land-use changes in their catchment. However, despite the resulting, often dramatic ecological consequences, saline lakes rank low on policy agendas as they are assumed to support few ecosystem services and low levels of biodiver...

The current systematics of the large branchiopod crustaceans are reviewed in relation to other crustacean groups and from class to genus level. Calmanostraca and Diplostraca are raised to superorder, and †Kazacharthra and Notostraca are both treated as orders. Problems and needs regarding the systematics of large branchiopods are presented and disc...

Species are fundamental units of nature that need proper identification in order to assess and conserve biodiversity. Artemia is a model crustacean for population analysis and comparison in regionally endemic sexual species and parthenogenetic lineages distributed in hypersaline lakes, lagoons, and solar saltworks scattered in arid and semi-arid ar...

Insects are a promising source of high-quality protein, and the insect farming industry will lead to higher sustainability when it overcomes scaling up, cost effectiveness, and automation. In contrast to insect farming (raising and breeding insects as livestock), wild insect harvesting (collecting agricultural insect pests), may constitute a simple...

Hypersaline lakes in arid and semi-arid areas are unique ecosystems that harbor unique extremophile organisms, such as Artemia, the paradigmatic example of adaptation to harsh living conditions. We assessed the mitogenomic biodiversity of Artemia species from the Tibetan Plateau, China, a remote and yet minimally disturbed ecosystem with a variety...

Seasonally astatic aquatic habitats are important ecologically, municipally, and agriculturally. Regulatory agencies and conservation organizations have developed various plans for protecting or constructing temporary wetlands, resulting in habitat monitoring requirements, particularly as relates to restoration and constructed habitats. Unfortunate...

Seasonally astatic aquatic habitats are important ecologically, municipally, and agriculturally. Regulatory agencies and conservation organizations have developed various plans for protecting or constructing temporary wetlands, resulting in habitat monitoring requirements, particularly as relates to restoration and constructed habitats. Unfortunate...

Psychology and vision science, university of leicester, leicester, uK; j school of veterinary science, Murdoch university, Perth, wA, Australia; k Department of ichthyology, Faculty of Biology, lomonosov Moscow state university, Moscow, Russia; l school of Biomedical sciences, university of queensland, Australia; m Pepperell Research and consulting...

The fairy shrimp genus Parartemiopsis Rogers, 2005 currently contains a single species reported from Russia and Mongolia. In 2013, an unidentified Parartemiopsis population was reported from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau in China’s Yunnan Province, from Patatson National Park in Shangri-La County. Here, we describe the Chinese populatio...

Branchinecta serrata Rogers, 2006 was originally thought to be limited to four localities in the central USA. We present new records of this species in prairie pools in central Canada, greatly extending its known distribution. Previous records from Canada were misidentified as the common and widespread B. paludosa (Müller, 1788). We present images...

Species of Artemia are regionally endemic branchiopod crustaceans composed of sexual species and parthenogenetic lineages, and represent an excellent model for studying adaptation and speciation to extreme and heterogeneous hypersaline environments. We tested hypotheses of whether populations from the Tibetan Plateau belong to A. tibetiana Abatzopo...

The first freshwater species from the US Virgin Islands (USVI) was described 190 years ago, but research on inland aquatic animals, particularly invertebrates, remains limited. Due to a complex history of European colonization in the Caribbean, natural history writings about inland aquatic diversity for the USVI began almost 250 years later than th...

The fairy shrimp Tanymastigites ajjerin. sp. is described from a temporary water body, or guelta, in the Sahara Desert near the Tadrart mountains, east of Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Libya. Males are readily separated from congeners by the morphology of the frontal appendages, which have an undivided lateral ramus and ≥ 0.4× the length of the me...

Vernal pool fairy shrimp, Branchinecta lynchi, is a freshwater crustacean endemic to California and Oregon, including California’s Central Valley. B. lynchi is listed as a Federally Threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act, and as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List. Threats that may negatively impact vernal pool fairy shrimp po...

The limnadiid clam shrimps of southern Africa are revised and the history and difficulties surrounding the taxonomy of the species in this region are discussed. Three new species are described: two of Eulimnadia Packard, 1874 and one of Gondwanalimnadia Rogers, Rabet & Weeks, 2016. The two new Eulimnadia species are distinguished from congeners by...

The large branchiopod crustaceans (Anostraca, Notostraca, and Spinicaudata) of Qatar have only been examined recently. Although 15 nominal species have been reported for the Arabian Peninsula, there is confusion surrounding the determinations of previously collected taxa from Qatar, and the validity of some spinicaudatan taxa is in question. Most s...

Most large branchiopods inhabit endorheic waters that are of a temporary nature, atypical for the wet tropics but common in (semi)arid regions. Due to their ancient history and conserved morphology, they are often referred to as “living fossils.” Adapted to cope with intermittent droughts, large branchiopods produce long lived resting eggs that acc...

We review and revise the southern African species of Leptestheria Daday, 1913 (Leptestheriidae) based on type specimens when possible as well as on new material. We recognise four species out of the six hitherto reported from the region south of the Kunene, Okavango, and Zambezi rivers. Leptestheria inermis (Barnard, 1929) is shown to be a junior s...

We report and describe new Chirocephalus diaphanus Prévost, 1803 gynandromorphs from Tunisia and review the literature of anostracan gynandromorphy and other, possibly associated, somatic aberrations, with comments on their evolutionary significance. Our material has three specimens that are specifically deformed on the left side of the head.

Biodiversity is central to the structure and functioning of communities including those of temporary water bodies. Worldwide the large branchiopod component commonly consists up to about six species instantaneously per site and twice that number across the surrounding district. Where these figures reach eight to ten species per site and about twice...

Laevicaudatan branchiopods, also called 'smooth clam shrimps' or 'pea shrimps', are rare crustaceans found exclusively in temporary, small freshwater bodies, which stay dry most of the year. Only 42 laevicaudatan species have been described so far, 90% of which belong to the genus Lynceus. The first multilocus phylogeny of the group is provided her...

We describe two new species of fairy shrimp from the Northern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa. Both species are from arid inland regions, where little survey work for crustaceans has been conducted. Branchipodopsis transversusn. sp. is separated from congeners by the unique form of the male second antennae, which bear a transverse anterior...

We present the first records of Leptestheria brevirostris since its discovery in Namibia by Barnard in 1924. Our records come from Botswana and South Africa, and present significant range extensions. We redescribe L. brevirostris according to modern standards and present the first description of the male. We also discovered that L. brevirostris is...

The use of quantitative invertebrate community indices to monitor inland water quality is widespread. However, this approach is rare for the Caribbean, where the dominant animal groups are substantially different from those in continental waters and surface water availability is strongly influenced by seasonality. For the United States Virgin Islan...

Amphidromous shrimps of the genus Caridina (Crustacea: Decapoda: Atyidae) are essential components of the tropical insular freshwater ecosystems. Due to an extremely confused taxonomy, their biodiversity is poorly known, and their conservation status cannot be properly assessed. However, thanks to recent advances of integrative taxonomy, the system...

Studies of temperature effects on morphology in Spinicaudata have focused on length, with no data on shape. To fill this gap, size and shape variability in response to temperature fluctuations was investigated by rearing the modern spinicaudatan Eulimnadia texana. Two days after hydration, juvenile individuals were separated into four different tem...

Spinicaudatan clam shrimp are a widespread and diverse group of branchiopod crustaceans, yet few mitochondrial genomes have been published for this taxonomic group. Here, we present the mitogenome of Leptestheria brevirostris from a rock pool ecosystem in Botswana. Massively parallel sequencing of a single specimen facilitated the reconstruction of...

In this study, we examine, identify, and discuss fossil remains of large branchiopod crustaceans collected from six sites across the Beringian region (north-eastern Asia and north-western North America). Eggs and mandibles from Anostraca and Notostraca, as well as a notostracan telson fragment and a possible notostracan second maxilla, were collect...

We review the current knowledge surrounding the Triops granarius morphological species group globally, and present a revision of the southern African T. granarius forms based on collections from southern Africa and Madagascar. We also provide comparisons with other material of T. granarius from outside this region. We revise the morphological descr...

Pleistocene water bodies have been studied using the paleolimnological approach, which traces environmental changes using particular subfossils as ecological proxies, rather than analysis of the paleocommunities themselves. Within a given taphocoenosis, the presence and quantity of animals are related to environmental conditions rather than to comm...

Clam shrimps constitute a paraphyletic group of bivalved branchiopod crustaceans that includes orders Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata, and Cyclestherida. The unique mineral content of the carapace, formed by molt retention in Spinicaudata and Cyclestherida, has been variously ascribed to calcium carbonate or calcium phosphate. We analyzed the compositio...

We describe a new species of Eulimnadia from the Caribbean using fresh material from the island of St Thomas. Originally reported in 2003 as a Eulimnadia cf. texana (Packard, 1871) based on egg morphology, this species egg distinctly differs from E. texana by the number of lateral grooves and by the single domed end.

Spinicaudata (spiny clam shrimp) is a taxon of Branchiopoda occurring since the Devonian and today it occurs nearly globally in temporary water bodies. We present the most species-rich phylogenetic analyses of this taxon based on four molecular loci: COI, 16S rRNA, EF1α and 28S rRNA. Our results support previous findings that Cyzicidae sensu lato i...

The ephemeral waterbodies of southern Africa are regarded a global hotspot for large Branchiopod diversity. Although the distributions and systematics of Anostraca and Notostraca have been fairly well defined, clam shrimps have received much less attention. So far, 18 clam shrimp species are known from the sub-region, but none of the available publ...

We describe a new species of Eulimnadia from the Oriental region using museum specimens collected from India and fresh material from Thailand. This species has egg morphology resembling E. magdalensis s. lat. and E. chaperi, but distinctly differs from them by presence of a narrow depression at the polygon floor. We also comment on the species stat...

Large branchiopods inhabit diverse continental habitats worldwide. Their feeding ecology, nevertheless, remains largely unknown. The few functional morphology studies that have been conducted have mostly focused on adults or larvae, seldom have the two been compared collectively. In this study, we examined the feeding structures in Eulimnadia braue...

Eulimnadia and Paralimnadia are both strongly supported, monophyletic limnadiid lineages based on molecular studies. However, defining the two taxa morphologically relies on the presence/absence of a subcercopodal spiniform projection; otherwise there is considerable overlap and confusion in morphological characters between the two taxa. The most d...

The Spinicaudata (spiny clam shrimp) are a large group of freshwater, bivalved branchiopod crustaceans in need of taxonomic revision. Herein, the extant Spinicaudata families and genera are defined and diagnosed according to modern standards. An annotated catalogue of the Spinicaudata taxa is presented with synonyms. More than 747 spinicaudatan tax...

After a symposium and special issue devoted to the study of clam shrimp, it is tempting to ask what is next… where is the study of clam shrimp going? Rather than try to read the tea leaves to predict the future, we will instead offer some closing thoughts on where the study of clam shrimp should go and what areas are ripe for investigation. Many of...

This special volume of Zoological Studies is the result of a symposium entitled "Fossil and Modern Clam Shrimp" held at the midyear meeting of The Crustacean Society in May of 2019. This symposium is the first ever focusing on clam shrimp, and the first conference where both palaeontologists and biologists specialising in these animals were able to...

A new species of smooth clam shrimp (Branchiopoda: Laevicaudata) from Mongolia and China is described here based on both morphological and genetic differences. The new species, Lynceus grossipedia n. sp., has unique features, including asymmetrically modified male thoracopods (left side thoracopods III-VI), male claspers “movable finger” (=endopod)...

The Branchinectidae is a diverse and widely distributed group of anostracans. The majority of work on the group has focused on the morphological delineation of taxa and biogeography. Here we present a molecular phylogeny for select members of the family to better understand the distribution of morphological variation among species, and test biogeog...

The large branchiopod crustacean fauna (fairy shrimp, tadpole shrimp and clam shrimp) of the Neotropical Bioregion are incompletely known, with scattered records for many taxa, and many new taxa discovered and described regularly. As an aid to furthering our knowledge of the group in this region, we present an assortment of notes and records on var...

Clam shrimps (Spinicaudata) are a widespread and diverse crustacean group that frequent temporary aquatic habitats, but few complete mitochondrial genomes have been published for this group. Here, we report the mitogenome of an undescribed Gondwanalimnadia species from Botswana. Raw sequences were assembled into a single circular genome with a tota...

Frozen permafrost Pleistocene mammal carcasses with soft tissue remains are subject to intensive study and help elucidate the palaeoenvironment where these animals lived. Here we present an inventory of the freshwater fauna and flora found in a sediment sample from the mummified Woolly Mammoth carcass found in August 2010, from the Oyogos Yar coast...

Fairy shrimps (Anostraca) constitute an important component of seasonally aquatic habitats, but few complete mitochondrial genomes have been published for this group. Here, we report the mitogenome of a common southern African species, Streptocephalus cafer, from Botswana (accession number: MN720104). Low-coverage shotgun sequencing recovered two c...

In this chapter we present an updated taxonomic review of the inland water members of the phylum Arthropoda, which includes the Chelicerata (mites and spiders), Myriapoda (aquatic millipedes), and Crustacea (crustaceans, apterygotans, and insects). The Chelicerata are covered most extensively in this chapter, while Neotropical insects (now within t...

An updated taxonomic review of the crustacean class Branchiopoda present in the Neotropics is given in this chapter. Dichotomous keys to the lowest justifiable taxonomic level based on the most recent literature are provided. These are coupled with the necessary material preparation methods, defined relevant morphological terms, and current limitat...

An updated taxonomic review of freshwater Hexapoda (insects and springtails) found in the Neotropical and Antarctic regions is presented in this chapter along with the introduction to the subphylum Crustacea. Dichotomous identification keys to classes of Crustacea and orders of Hexapoda are included, but readers are referred to “Vol. III: Keys to N...

An updated taxonomic review of Malacostraca from the Neotropical regions is presented in this chapter. Dichotomous identification keys to the lowest justifiable taxonomic level based on the most recent literature are provided. Material preparation methods, defined morphological terms, and current limitations in the knowledge of the group are also p...

Over the course of my career I have described nine Branchiopod genera and one subgenus, either alone or with other researchers. From these, four genera and the subgenus belong to Anostraca. But I was remiss in designating type species for one of those taxa which caused the name to become unavailable. This short communication is to rectify this unfo...

Laevicaudata has a nearly global distribution, but only a few records from China. We present a new Lynceus (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Laevicaudata) species, Lynceus amplopedia sp. nov., from Yunnan, China, which shows significant left-right differences in some non-clasper thoracopods. It can be distinguished from all congeners by asymmetrically modi...

The first molecular phylogeny of Lynceus (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Laevicaudata) is presented together with a description of a new species of laevicaudatan branchiopod from Chile, Lynceus huentelauquensis, sp. nov. DNA sequences were obtained from six species of Lynceus using freshly collected specimens from Europe, North America, South America, an...

We present a review of Dendrocephalus (Dendrocephalinus) with an updated diagnosis for the subgenus and a key to all known species. We provide new records of Dendrocephalus alachua, which was previously supposed to be extinct, and we describe a new species, Dendrocephalus proeliator sp. nov., which is separated from all other species based on the f...

Anostracans (Branchiopoda, Anostraca) have some of the most elaborate mating behaviours among crustaceans. Behaviour of adult anostracans was observed and quantified in 1) receptive males and females, 2) unreceptive females, and 3) isolated individuals of both sexes of Branchinecta lindahliPackard, 1883. Males demonstrated specific mate-searching b...

Atyid shrimps, a key component of tropical freshwater ecosystems, face multiple anthropogenic threats and thus need special attention. With more than 300 described species, the genus Caridina is the most speciose of all the Caridea infra-order. Caridina spp. occupy diverse habitats in tropical freshwaters of the Indo-West Pacific region. Several sp...

The complete mitochondrial genome of a cryptic species of tadpole shrimp from South Africa (Accession Number: MG770893) was recovered by low coverage shotgun sequencing. The mitogenome consists of 15,216 bp with a GC content of 30.95%. COX1 sequence alignment indicates that this specimen is the most closely related to Triops granarius with a pairwi...

As part of preparation for identification keys to the branchiopod crustaceans of the Neotropical Region, we re-examined many species of Anostraca that appeared to be closely related. Our examination caused us to re-evaluate the status and relationship of two branchinectid species.

Organisms evolve to maintain fitness across generations, while short-term fitness in stochastic habitats such as temporary wetlands may be highly varied. As typical temporary wetland inhabitants, large branchiopods rely on bet hedging hatching that helps them survive throughout generations. An optimal hatching rate is predicted to be approximate to...

Aeginecta longicauda n. gen., n. sp. is described from material collected from a seasonally astatic aquatic habitat in Argentina. It is only known from the type locality and two male specimens; at this point the female remains unknown. Specific unique gonopod and genital segment features demonstrate that this taxon represents a unique genus within...

Understanding the evolution of Tetraconata or Pancrustacea-the clade that includes crustaceans and insects-requires a well-resolved hypothesis regarding the relationships within and among its constituent taxa. Here, we assembled a taxon-rich phylogenomic dataset focusing on crustacean lineages based solely on genomes and new-generation Illumina-gen...

Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that has provided the universal naming and classification system of biodiversity for centuries and continues effectively to accommodate new knowledge. A recent publication by Garnett and Christidis [1] expressed concerns regarding the difficulty that taxonomic changes represent for conservation efforts and propos...

The diversity of anostracans in Myanmar is poorly known. A series of biodiversity surveys had been conducted in Myanmar, and two species of Streptocephalus were collected in the central dry zone. Streptocephalus sirindhornae Sanoamuang et al., 2000 is reported in Myanmar for the first time, and Streptocephalus shinsawbuae sp. n. is described as new...

During field trips to Guam and Babeldaob Islands in Micronesia, freshwater shrimps were sampled and assigned either to Caridina brachydactyla De Man, 1908 or C. mertoni J. Roux, 1911 (Decapoda: Atyidae), following previous inventories. In combining morphological data with a genetical analysis, it appeared that all the specimens belonged to a new sp...

Zooplankton generally distributes patchily. Distributional patchiness could be adaptive to survival and reproduction, especially for large branchiopods that live in temporary pools with variable aquatic environments. We focused on spatial utilization by three sympatric large branchiopods in a subtropical temporary pool (Siangtian Pond, northern Tai...

Branchinecta lindahli is a generalist fairy shrimp that has a widespread distribution in North America. We initiated a study to better understand the geographic structure of genetic variation within this species and to test if cryptic species are present in B. lindahli. Additionally, we examined four other species of Branchinecta to test if there w...

We present a summary of responses to our call among scientists working on Anostraca to commemorate the late Professor Graziella Mura, a pioneer of modern studies on this group of animals. Colleagues from all over the world promptly answered and contributed their works among which we selected the fourteen papers published in the Hydrobiologia Specia...

We present the first record of Eocyzicus from Taiwan. Eocyzicus taiwanensis n. sp. can be distinguished from all other Eocyzicus species by the form of the claspers, the telson and the cercopods. This new species is so far known only from the type locality, which is a series of flood irrigated garlic fields in the Tainan District. The genus is revi...

We analyzed the asymmetrical molar surfaces of two fairy shrimps, Streptocephalus sirindhornaeSanoamuang, Murugan, Weekers & Dumont, 2000 and Branchinella thailandensisSanoamuang, Saengphan & Murugan, 2002. The peripheral region of the left and right mandibles in both species has several rows of rectangular teeth. Each row has 5–8 small stubby dent...

Note. This original form of this rebuttal was submitted to Science on 3 March 2017 (limited to 300 words as per Science editorial policy) but rejected on 13 March 2017. Herein, we elaborate on our original Science submission in order to more fully address the issue without the length limitations. This rebuttal is followed by the list of the signato...

This original form of this rebuttal was submitted to Science on 3 March 2017 (limited to 300 words as per Science editorial policy) but rejected on 13 March 2017. Herein, we elaborate on our original Science submission in order to more fully address the issue without the length limitations. This rebuttal is followed by the list of the signatories w...

VIDEO S1. Clasping in Ozestheria sp. (Crustacea: Spinicaudata)

Functional morphology of amplexus (clasping) in spinicaudatan clam shrimps (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) and its evolution in bivalved branchiopods: A video-based analysis Authors Zandra M. S. Sigvardt, D. Christopher Rogers, Jørgen Olesen