Abstract

Climate, geographical distribution, and specific structure of phyllopods anostraca (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) communities in Morocco

Author(s): Cherif Kadi Hamman, Samira Benkerroum, El Hassania Saad, Ilham Saad1,Sara Sassa, Allal Douira, Mohamed Fadli

Many authors approached the study of the climate effect on the distribution and on the structure of the groupings of the botanical species while using “climatic” indications allowing to give a synthetic expression of the climate of the studied stations. The indication most used in Mediterranean climate is the pluviometric coefficient of Emberger noted « Q2 ». The present work bases itself on the use of this indication, climatic parameters m, P and the thermal distance « M-m » of the studied stations to show the effect of the climate on the geographical distribution of Anostraca crustaceans and on the structure of their communities. The results show that, inMorocco, the climate is one of the main factors which control the geographical distribution of these crustaceans. The zones without extreme climatic conditions have a maximal specific variety of Anostraca.Also, and fromthe climatic characteristics of a given region we can determine the species and the structure of the communities of ShellfishesAnostraca which are potentially able of existing.