Life at the extreme: meiofauna from three unexplored lakes in the caldera of the Cerro Azul volcano, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

On Isla Isabela, Galápagos Archipelago, three so far unexplored lakes were investigated in the caldera of Cerro Azul, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The lakes face recurrent desiccation and eruption events and showed distinct differences in their water chemistry. Thirty cores from the upper 15 cm of sediment indicate distinct differences in the composition of meiobenthic communities between the lakes. In total, 27 different aquatic metazoan species could be distinguished. Numerically, rotifers dominated in two of the lakes, with mean densities up to 4.56 × 10 6 individuals m −2 while the third lake was dominated by a gastrotrich of the genus Chaetonotus (0.67 × 10 6 individuals m −2 ). The largest lake harboured up to 14.4 × 10 6 nematodes m −2 , which is the highest nematode density thus far reported for a freshwater habitat. The lakes yielded few nematode species ( S = 7, N = 887) and calculation of the Shannon–Wiener index ( H ′) indicated an exceptionally low nematode diversity. The nematode community of one lake was clearly dominated by an undescribed suction-feeding Mesodorylaimus (59.6%), the community of the other lake by the epistrate feeder Achromadora pseudomicoletzkyi (89.3%), whereas the third lake surprisingly contained no nematodes. The benthic nematode biomasses for the two nematode-containing lakes differed by a factor 50. The food webs of the three lakes are presumed to have an exceptionable simply structure.