Transition from Water to Land in Amphipod Crustaceans

摘要: Synopsis. Truly terrestrial Amphipoda are known solely in the Family Talitridae, only family also found extensively supralittoral. Commonly, they crytozoic inhabitants of leafmold tropical or southern cold-temperate forests. Except as recent introductions, absent from Europe and North America. There a few records Central America Caribbean. The success talitrids colonizing land is considered due to invasion direct supralittoral debris. Leafmold provides an insulated niche with sufficient food moisture for colonization little modification. Apart possible loss pleopods, adaptations appear merely continue trends already present littoral species. Present distribution can partly be explained terms past geology. species derived cosmopolitan genera may have arisen independently different countries. Some widely-distributed species, e.g., Talitrus pacificus, been transported by man; accidental transplantation amphipods known. not achieved independence Isopoda; restricted fairly narrow niche. colonized grasslands but circumstances which environmentally very leafmold.