Occurrence and Spread of the Alien Thermocyclopis taihokuensis (Harada, 1931) (Crustacea: Cyclopoidae) across Floodplain Lakes of the Khoper State Reserve in Voronezh Oblast in 2021–2022

The paper presents data on the occurrence and spread of the alien species Thermocyclops taihokuensis across small floodplain lakes of the Khoper Reserve. It was shown that the invader primarily inhabits lakes with rare and extremely rare inundation during the freshet season; the species was not found in annually inundated water bodies. The size of sexually mature females averaged 960 µm. It was revealed that, in July 2022, in the pelagic zone of annually flooded lakes, the abundance and biomasses of Copepoda were significantly higher compared to rarely flooded lakes.