Pilbara 'mini prawns' under the microscope

11/4/06
Tiny crustaceans - some only half a millimetre long - found in the Pilbara are the focus of international scientific interest.
The Department of Conservation and Land Management has brought two European scientists to the Pilbara to join a team that is carrying out a major biological survey in the region.
The minuscule animals - known as ostracods or seed prawns - make up 10 per cent of the invertebrates found in the Pilbara.
Dr Koen Martens and his wife, Dr Isa Schoen, have been sponsored by CALM to spend two months describing new species of ostracod found in the Pilbara and to examine the relationship of Australian species to those in other parts of the world.
Environment Minister Mark McGowan said the husband and wife team would be using DNA techniques to examine some new species of the small bivalved crustaceans, often called seed prawns.
"Ostracods are an important group of invertebrates, accounting for more than 10 per cent of the invertebrate species in the Pilbara," Mr McGowan said.
"They are very small, ranging from 0.5mm to 5mm long and occur in rivers and claypans and in groundwater 50m or more below the surface. They actually look like tiny river mussels.
"The invertebrate fauna of WA are still poorly known and there are many new species awaiting description, especially in remote areas like the Pilbara, where CALM is surveying rivers, wetlands and groundwater as part of a four-year survey designed to document the plants and animals of the region and understand their distribution across it."
Dr Martens will set up a framework for Australian scientists to continue describing new ostracods species after his departure.
Dr Martens is a senior scientist at Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and a professor of Taxonomy and Evolution at the University of Ghent in Belgium. He did his masters degree in science on ostracods at the Australian National University in 1982-83 and has worked with these species for 25 years.
He has published more than 400 scientific papers and written and edited 10 books on ostracods and freshwater biology and is currently the chief editor for the leading scientific journal Hydrobiologia, which deals with the biology of aquatic systems.
Dr Schoen has been working at the Brussels institute with Dr Martens for the past 10 years and is one of the pioneers of DNA research on ostracods.
Minister's office: 9222 9111