Biodiversity of Amphipods

Discovering a new species is something many biologists dream of. But for Cédric d’Udekem d’Acoz, researcher at the Museum, it has become a habit. In the past years, he has described dozens of new amphipod species. “Amphipods are little crustaceans that live mainly in the sea, but that also occur in freshwater”, Cédric tells us. “Some species have even managed to cross over onto land, but they’re only able to survive in humid regions. That is because, like all other amphipods, they use gills to breathe. And these gills have to remain sufficiently moist to function. Amphipods have a flattened body and somewhat resemble shrimp, to which they’re only distantly related. “

Cédric’s desk is full of bowls that contain amphipods of all shapes and sizes. “The biodiversity of amphipods is very big”, he says. “There are thousands of species with different variations in colors, shapes and sizes. You could call them the insects of the sea. Just like insects, different species have their own particular traits: they can be herbivores, predators, scavengers, omnivores , etc.”

Amphipods occur all over the world, but the number of species is the largest in cold waters. “The department Invertebrates of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences regularly sends a team to Antarctica to research amphipods. Two years ago, in the winter, I went to Antarctica to collect amphipods. During these voyages by boat, that often last more than two months, pods and nets are used to take samples of amphipods on different depths, in front of the coast as well as in the abysses of the open sea.”