Possible mediation of Cladocera species by a researcher's chest wader

Mediation of aquatic species has become an increasing problem for the last few decades. With the increasing commercial import, species’ direct or indirect spread can gain more space. There are several ways for them to land in their new home and spread through the country. Most of the aquatic species are spread by waterways, boats, vehicles, or even with the help of humans. Cladocerans have a good dispersal ability, thanks to their small size, additionally they possess good adaptation, and mechanisms to develop resting eggs. Benthic or littoral species can be mediated much more easily due to their living space, and with the help of human activities (e.g., scientists, anglers and people working in water bodies) they have a higher chance to colonize new habitats. Our goal was to explore if Cladocera species might be mediated by a scientist chest wader, while sampling in similar-sized, close-to-each other lakes, with different utilization. Most of the species were found in abandoned fishing lakes, followed by oxbow lakes (protected), and ultimately in intensively fished lakes. NMDS showed that samples from lakes with the same utilization are similar to each other. Differently utilized lakes can have various Cladocera species, even though they are closely related to each other. Based on the results, scientists can mediate species on their chest wader from lake to lake and may deteriorate the results. We recommend a necessary chest wader cleaning after every sampling process, especially when samples are taken from differently utilized lakes.