Consequences of prairie wetland drainage for crustacean biodiversity and metapopulations

The Crustacean communities are studied for 3 years in a set of extant ephemeral wetlands in Illinois to examine the effects of habitat fragmentation on the genetic structure of extant crustacean metapopulations. It is concluded that the conversion of former wet prairie to agriculture may have reduced the metapopulations and that the conservation programs can preserve much of the historical biodiversity of ephemeral wetlands.