Study of morphotypes and life history of six clones of Lecane bulla (Gosse, 1851) from Quintana Roo, Mexico

The genus Lecane is highly diverse, there are 209 species, most of which inhabits tropical aquatic systems. In Quintana Roo 42 species have been reported, one of these is Lecane bulla described at the widest distribution throughout the Yucatan peninsula however; their morphotypes and demographic features are unknown. Therefore, the objective of this work was identify the presence of morphotypes L. bulla and their life history traits. We evaluated life history and morphometric data of females and asexual and sexual eggs from the populations were established from clonal strains, which remained in laboratory conditions for 6 months. They were kept in a bioclimatic chamber with photoperiod of 12 hours of light and 12 hours darkness, at a 25 ± 2 °C, and were feeding with the green algae Nannochloropsis oculata at 1 × 106 cell/ml. Thirty-four clonal strains from six locations were analyzed. Statistical analysis determined significant differences between morphometric measurements (p < 0.001) in the six localities as well as showed statistically significant differences in all demographic parameters. In conclusion, this study indicates the possible coexistence in the same geographical area of two different morphotypes of L. bulla, one is a small-sized distributed in the northwest of Quintana Roo and another large-sized in the southwest.