Rebecca Partemi, Nicolas Debortoli, Alejandro Martínez, Lyudmila Kamburska, Caroline Souffreau, Hans Matheve, Pieter Vantieghem, Luc De Meester, Karine van Doninck, Thomas Merckx, Diego Fontaneto
Human activities have an overwhelming impact on the natural environment, leading to a deep biodiversity crisis whose effects range from genes to ecosystems. Here, we analysed the effect of such anthropogenic impacts on bdelloid rotifers (Rotifera Bdelloidea), for whom these effects are poorly understood. We targeted bdelloid rotifers living in lichen patches across urbanization gradients in Flanders and Brussels (Belgium). Urbanization was measured as the percentage of built-up area (BU) across different spatial scales, at circles from 50 to 3200 m of radius around the lichen...
April 2024: Royal Society Open Science