This study of the shallow water littoral zone from Vama Veche regards the vagile psammophile and phytophile/iliophile fauna from the midlittoral stratum and superior infralittoral (0 – 2 meters deep) and it is based on 62 quantitative biological samples, taken in July and the first part of October 2005. Representatives from 15 supraspecific taxonomical groups were identified: 44 species in the psammon and 32 species in habitats from the hard substrate with vegetation; a relatively reduced number of species are encountered in both types of habitats, which is owed mostly to their euritropism and capacity to move or to the fact that they are drawn by the water masses; however, most species manifest an accentuated positive tropism for different types of habitat, such as certain species of psammic Turbellaria and Polychaeta: Archilina endostyla, Monocelis lineata, Saccocirrus papillocercus, Namanereis pontica or the species of phytophile crustaceans from the group of Harpacticida and Gammaridae Amphipoda or of Isopoda: Eurydice pontica-psammic, Sphaeroma pulchellum and S. serratum-iliophile, Idotea and Naesa bidentata phytophile. The coarse midlittoral sediments are dominated by species of Turbellaria, Polychaeta, and Harpacticida. Representatives from 13 supraspecific taxonomical groups were encountered in these habitats; representatives from eight supraspecific groups were identified in the mid-fine sediments from the sheltered zones of the infralittoral, the dominant ones being nematodes and species of psammic copepods. A large number of species from 15 groups were identified in the habitats with macro algal vegetation, the most frequent and abundant of them being the Peracarida crustaceans from the group of Isopoda and Amphipoda.

zoobenthos; psammon; vagil- phytal- and iliophile-fauna; tropism; epifauna; infauna

Presentation: oral