European Ocean Biodiversity Information System

This data set covers all studies conducted in the three currently accepted biogeographic regions of Antarctica (Stonehouse 1982; Lewis-Smith 1984; Ochyra 1998; Van der Putten et al. 2012): (1) Subantarctica, representing all the islands at latitudes between 45° and 60°S, including the South Atlantic Ocean Province (South Georgia), the South Pacific Ocean Province (Macquarie Island) and the South Indian Ocean Province (Prince Edward Islands, Iles Crozet, Iles Kerguelen and the Heard Island group); (2) Maritime Antarctica, including the other islands and archipelagos in the South Atlantic (namely South Shetlands, South Orkneys, South Sandwich and Bouvetøya) and the Antarctic peninsula (Palmer Land and Graham Land); (3) Continental Antarctica, representing all the rest of the continent, excluding the peninsula, and the surrounding islands. Moreover, for Continental Antarctica, a further subdivision in six sectors (Pugh 1993; McInnes & Pugh 1998; Velasco-Castrillón et al. 2014a, b, c) was followed: (1) Maud (between 30°W and 30°E), (2) Enderby (between 30°E and 90°E), (3) Wilkes (between 90°E and 150°E), (4) Scott (between 150°E and 150°W), (5) Byrd (between 90°W and 150°W), (6) Ronne (between 30°W and 90°W, excluding the Peninsula, which belongs to Maritime Antarctica).
The data set covers all records of the phylum Rotifera in Antarctica. The inclusion of a taxon was based on its taxonomic assignation to the phylum Rotifera in its traditional meaning, excluding parasitic Acanthocephala (Fontaneto & De Smet 2015). All taxa belonging to Rotifera were considered. In particular, we gathered data from records at the species, genus, family, class (Bdelloidea, Monogononta, Seisonacea), and phylum (Rotifera) level (Fontaneto & De Smet 2015).
The completeness of the literature survey was confirmed by using three different search engines, and by not finding additional papers until 2014 not already listed in Fontaneto et al. (2015). The published data were considered reliable and simply checked for nomenclatorial consistency. Taxonomic data were checked and updated to include revision of names, synonymizing, delimitation of genera and higher taxa, all conducted through a comparison with the List of Available Names for Rotifera (Segers et al. 2012, 2015) for all species described before year 2000, and with the original descriptions for all species described after year 2000. Both the original name reported in the paper reporting the record and the currently accepted name are included in the data set.