MEIOBENTHIC POPULATION OF MARINE LITTORAL DEPOSITS IN SEVASTOPOL REGION (BLACK SEA)

• Published in: Ėkologiâ morâ no. 73; pp. 31 - 35
• Main Author: Guseva, E V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Kiev National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, A.O. Kovalevskii Inst of Biology of Southern Seas 01.01.2007
• Subjects: Littoral deposits; Marine; MED, Ukraine, Crimea, Kruglaya Bay; MED, Black Sea
• ISSN: 0203-4646; 1726-6777

The abundance and taxonomic composition of alluvial meiofauna were focused on in summer months in 2001-2003 at five intertidal seawater regions of the open seashore and in several Sevastopol (Crimea, Ukraine) bays subject to anthropogenic impacts of different character and intensity. Depended upon the location, bottom ground and pollution level of meiofauna inhabiting the coastal alluvia differ in the population density, taxonomic diversity and group proportion. The highest density estimates (105-750 thousand ind/m super(2)) and largest taxonomic diversity are characteristic of the silty sands in the most sheltered part of the Kruglaya Bay receiving considerable load, while in Uchkuyevka that faces the open sea and has relatively pure sand and pebble sea floor the corresponding estimates are the lowest. The meiofauna found in the coastal alluvia and in the bottom sediments (1-2.5 m depths) of the Kruglaya Bay were compared using the data obtained in 2003. It was shown that in the alluvia the taxonomic diversity and the portion of harpacticoids are less. Harpacticoids prevail in the alluvia of the open-sea regions and/or those close to the deep-water areas, but is only subdominant in the bottom sediments. In the alluvia and in the sea bottom sediments of the enclosed shallows nematodes predominate. In 2003 an outbreak of meiobenthos abundance at all seawater regions was registered under the study.