• Rostrum present
• Cervical sinus absent
• Postabdominal claw with middle pecten the largest, with two to five teeth at least three times as long as distal pecten
• Optic vesicle not touching margin of head
• Interspinule distance two to three times spinule length

Daphnia catawba and D. minnehaha both have a distinct dark ring on the antennal setae that is absent from other species. Both species have 3 or 4 spines in their medial pectin as opposed to more than 5 in other species (3). Their abdominal processes are much less pubescent than those of other Daphnia species.

D. catawba is located in the north east region of North America . It is found in lakes in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, Connecticut, Wisconsin and North Carolina (3) and New Hampshire (4).

D. catawba can undergo cyclic parthenogenesis, i.e. periods of asexual reproduction followed by sexual reproduction depending on temperature (3)(4)(2).

Chaoborus (1), and juvenile planktivorous fish prey on D. catawba in the summer (4).

In the summer, D. catawba may compete with Holopedium gibberum for food, resulting in a decline of H. gibberum populations (4).

D. catawba has a nocturnal diel vertical migration, migrating upward at dusk and downward at dawn (4).

There is a rapid increase in population density in April in Lake Lacawac , a small glacial lake in northeastern Pennsylvania, associated with warming temperatures and high particulate organic matter (4). D. catawba population was minimal in midsummer most likely due to predation by fish and competition for food (4).

(1) BOEING, W., D. LEECH, C. WILLIAMSON, S. COOKE, and L. TORRES. 2004. Damaging UV radiation and invertebrate predation: conflicting selective pressures for zooplankton vertical distribution in the water column of low DOC lakes. Oecologia. 138: 603-612.

(2) CHEN, C.Y., and C.L. FOLT . 1996. Consequences of fall warming for zooplankton overwintering success. Limnol. Oceanogr. 41: 1077-1086

(3) HERBERT, P.D.N. and T.L FINSTON. 1997. A taxonomic reevaluation of North American Daphnia (Crustacea: Cladocera). III. The D. catawba complex. Can. J. Zool. 75: 1254-1261

(4) TESSIER, A.J. 1986. Comparative population regulation of two plankton Cladocera ( Holopedium gibberum and Daphnia catawba ). Ecology. 67: 285-302.

 

• Very similar in appearance to D. schodleri.
• See Hebert (1995) The Daphnia of North America: an Illustrated Fauna. CD-ROM Version 1., for variations.
• One of the most common Daphnia species in medium-sized meso-entrophic lakes in New England.