Abstract
Ecology and taxonomy of Moina species in the Czech Republic and Central Europe. Current state of knowledge about general characteristics and ecology of the Central European species of Moina Baird, 1850 is summarised.
Five species present in the Czech Republic or in the immediate vicinity can be divided into two groups according to their ecology: Two of them - Moina macrocopa (Straus, 1819) and M. brachiata (Jurine, 1820) - have larger body size and they are common in small ephemeral localities or highly eutrophic village ponds in the lowlands of the whole country, whereas M. micrura Kurz, 1874 and M. weismanni Ishikawa, 1896 are generally smaller and live in larger permanent waters. M. micrura is a native species, described from a locality in Central Bohemia.
M. weismanni is likely a Far East invader but is has been present in the region for several decades already, at least since early 1930's. The last species, M. ephemeralis Hudec, 1997, was described from a fishpond in Slovakia only very recently; however, it had been probably overlooked in the past due to the similarity of parthenogenetic females as well as usage of misleading identification keys.