Diversity of European freshwater cyclopoid species: phylogeny, morphology and ecology

Cyclopoids are together with Calanoids and Harpacticoids a part of the largest, very diverse group of crustaceans and the most numerous aquatic metazoans of the world. The history of their research goes as far back as to the beginning of 19th century when the first cyclopoid copepods were described. The taxonomy of cyclopoids started to develop gradually since that time, adding new and more detailed methods and morphological characters, as well as a certain degree of taxonomical confusion. In last decades, the molecular-genetic techniques of DNA sequencing have become available offering a new independent tool for taxonomists. This work contains different studies concerning the morphology, taxonomy, ecology, distribution and colonisation of cyclopoid copepods, with the use of molecular tools as a uniting element. Chapter 1 of this thesis summarizes basic knowledge about the taxonomy, morphology and biology of cyclopoid copepods and introduces the following chapters containing four studies presented as single publications. The taxonomy of copepods of the genus Cyclops is based mainly on the morphology which is sometimes ambivalent and some of the most problematic species groups are presented here. Chapter 2 presents our unique results, the first reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships among 15..