The history of the study of the fauna of rotifers of Lake Baikal dates back more than a century long. To date, as a result of numerous studies in Lake Baikal, there are 218 taxa of the species and infra-species level (14 % of which are endemic), belonging to 43 genera, 23 families and 4 orders of the class Eurotatoria. Most of the rotifers of the pelagial, benthal zone and psammal zone of Lake Baikal belongs to the order Ploima. The distribution and genesis of Baikal rotifers were analyzed using Markevich's macro-taxonomic system. This system is based on the comparison of functional-morphological rearrangements of trophic and locomotor-trophic complexes. Baikal rotifers of the order Ploima have a mastaxes of 4 types. A high percentage of endemism is characteristic of rotifers with malleate mastax and trophic preference for algophagy. Dicranophoridae with forcipate mastax are also characterized by high endemism. These macrophages pass to predation or eat large algae (including Diatomeae). The questions of genesis are considered mainly on the basis of model for Lake Baikal genus Notholca, where several phyletic series are distingwished. The rotifers of the Baikal complex are divided into 2 complexes: Siberia-Baikal complex (it dominates in the coastal zone, in the summer-autumn plankton and on the rocky littoral) and the Baikal complex itself. It consists of 4 groups with different time and ways of the genesis – paleolimnion relict species Synchaeta pachypoda, S. pachypoida, Inflatana pomazkovae; metalimnion pelagic and meiobenthos species (most species of Notholca, Dicranophoridae, etc.); psammolittoral planktobenthic neoendemic of the genus Notholca; potential pelagic endemic species of the genus Keratella (currently allocated as f. baicalensis). In general, the communities of rotifers of plankton and stony littoral are characterized by low species diversity and a small role of endemic species. But the community of psammolithoral rotifers, formed in the post-Pleistocene period, is characterized by qualitative and, in part, quantitative dominance of endemic species of different genesis.

Arov Igor Vadimovich, Candidate of Science (Biology), Associate Professor, Irkutsk State University, 1, K. Marx st., Irkutsk, 664003, Russian Federation, tel.: (3952) 24–19–27, e-mail: igarov@yandex.ru 

Misharina Evgenia Aleksandrovna, Candidate of Science (Biology), Associate Professor, Irkutsk State University, 1, K. Marx st., Irkutsk, 664003, Russian Federation, tel.: (3952) 24–19–27, e-mail: me603@mail.ru

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