Freshwater meiofauna occupies a central role in stream food webs, not always as intermediary but also as top consumers. Consequently, the meiofauna’s transient dynamical patterns and turnover are vital to understand its contribution to the overall production and energy flow within benthic freshwater systems. Here, we revise the current methodological procedures used to estimate production in benthic meiofauna, and compare their biomass and production data (a) to other benthic taxa, (b) in different habitats and systems, and (c) at the species level. Given the phyla diversity and when including temporary meiofauna (i.e. small insect larvae), care must be taken in selecting a production method and/or relying on published generation times. A handful of studies demonstrate that meiofaunal production values are well within the range displayed by macrofauna. We show that temperature-adjusted production and biomass of meiofaunal species from lakes, wetlands, and streams display a positive linear relationship with an exponent around 0.9, whereby biomass explains 90% of the variation in production. Further studies on meiofauna production should test the validity of our proposed allometric model for stream ecosystems and, thus, its possible generality.

中文翻译：

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淡水小型动物的生物量和生产：综述和新的异速生长模型

淡水小型动物在河流食物网中占据核心地位，它们并不总是作为中介，而且也是顶级消费者。因此，小型动物的瞬态动态模式和周转对于了解其对底栖淡水系统内整体生产和能量流的贡献至关重要。在这里，我们修改了当前用于估算底栖小型动物产量的方法程序，并将它们的生物量和产量数据 (a) 与其他底栖类群，(b) 在不同栖息地和系统中，以及 (c) 在物种水平上进行比较。鉴于门的多样性以及当包括临时小型动物群（即小型昆虫幼虫）时，必须谨慎选择生产方法和/或依赖公布的世代时间。少数研究表明，小型动物的生产价值完全在大型动物显示的范围内。我们表明，来自湖泊、湿地和溪流的小型动物物种的温度调整生产和生物量显示出正线性关系，指数约为 0.9，由此生物量解释了 90% 的生产变化。对小型动物生产的进一步研究应该检验我们提出的河流生态系统异速生长模型的有效性，从而检验其可能的普遍性。