Brachionus plicatilis is a euryhaline

Euryhaline

Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the molly which can live in fresh, brackish, or salt water. The European shore crab is an example of a euryhaline invertebrate that can live in salt and brackish water...

 (tolerate a wide range of salinity

Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

) rotifer

Rotifer

The rotifers make up a phylum of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals. They were first described by Rev. John Harris in 1696, and other forms were described by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1703...

 in the Family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Brachionidae, and is possibly the only commercially important rotifer, being raised in the aquaculture

Aquaculture

Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the...

 industry as food for fish larvae. It has a broad distribution in salt lakes around the world and has become a model system for studies in ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 and evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

. DNA sequencing studies in 2002 revealed Brachionus plicatilis to be a cryptic species complex

Cryptic species complex

In biology, a cryptic species complex is a group of species which satisfy the biological definition of species—that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other—but whose morphology is very similar ....

comprising approximately 10 separate species, each of which has been diverging for several million years. The species, rather than the complex, is now usually referred to as Brachionus plicatilis s. s. (sensu stricto).
Haploid '1C' genome sizes in the Brachionus plicatilis species complex range at least from 0.056 to 0.416 pg.