The sandy beach macrofauna of Gulf of Gabès (Tunisia)

Abstract

This study describes the macrofauna of the three beaches situated in central Gulf of Gabès (Tunisia): Ouderef, Gabès and Zarrat. The Gulf of Gabès has the largest tides in the Mediterranean and the beaches showed a wide intertidal zone. The beaches were sampled once during the spring low tides of June 2005. A transect was extended at each beach, from above the drift line to below the swash line at five sampled levels; at each level six 0.05 m2 replicates were taken to a depth of 30 cm and sieved through a 1‐mm mesh, and the organisms collected and preserved. The three beaches showed a different physical environment. Sediment type was medium sand at the steeper Ouderef beach, fine sands at Gàbes beach, and very fine sands at the flatter Zarrat beach. The total number of species collected was 31: 12 crustaceans, 10 polychaetes, four molluscs and five insects. The supralittoral and mediolittoral zones were very different. The supralittoral zone was dominated by Talitrus saltator and insects. The most abundant mediolittoral species were the amphipod crustacean Bathyporeia guilliamsoniana at Ouderef beach (23069 ind.m−1), the surf clam Donax trunculus at Gabès beach (60711 ind.m−1) and the spionid polychaete Scolelepis mesnili at Zarrat beach (18345.6 ind.m−1).

Habitat structure and zonation patterns of northwestern Mediterranean shoreline strands

“…The macroinvertebrate assemblages at the supralittoral level were clearly different from those found at the medio-and infralittoral levels. This division between the supralittoral and the two other littoral levels has been observed in northern beaches of Spain (Rodil et al 2006) and in Tunisia (Pérez-Domingo et al 2008). Oligochaeta, Nematoda, and Turblellaria may be quantitatively dominant in several Mediterranean beach portions (see Covazzi Harriague et al 2006) that are comparable to the supra-and mediolittoral levels studied here.…”

“…Chappuis et al 2014, Stotz et al 2016. Similar distributions have been described for sandy beaches (McLachlan and Jaramillo 1995, Pérez-Domingo et al 2008, Reyes-Martínez et al 2015, for which clear faunal zonation patterns along the vertical axis are acknowledged (Schlacher and Thompson 2013). On the other hand, shores characterized by the presence of coarse sediments ranging from gravels to large cobbles have been poorly studied as for habitat species compositions (but see Gauci et al 2005).…”

“…The most frequent trap captures were Collembola (often representing more than 94% of the organisms at northern sites), Fucellia maritima and other diptera, as observed on other Mediterranean beaches (Colombini et al 2005). On the other hand, the amphipod T. saltatorthe only abundant organism in the pitfall traps (Supplementary Material, Table S1)-was not as frequent and abundant as described in other studies (Węslawski et al 2000, Pérez-Domingo et al 2008, Reyes-Martínez et al 2015). This species generally shows low densities in late winter, a rapid increase from early spring to July, and the highest densities in summer (Marques et al 2003, Gonçalves et al 2009).…”

“…S. mesnili is very common in fine-to-medium-sand bottoms in the lower infralittoral of the Mediterranean Sea (e.g. Pérez-Domingo et al 2008). The cirolanid isopod Table 1) and the littoral level (S, supralittoral; M, mediolittoral; I, infralittoral).…”

Faunistic assemblages of a sublittoral coarse sand habitat of the northwestern Mediterranean

“…Díaz et al, 2005;Linares et al, 2005;Follesa et al, 2007), whereas soft substrates, and particularly sandy beaches, have been somewhat neglected (e.g. Ramón et al, 1995;San Vicente and Sorbe, 1999;Sardá et al, 2000;Zeichen et al, 2002;Pérez-Domingo et al, 2008). Physical factors such as sediment characteristics and wave climate, rather than biological interactions, have been shown to be the main components responsible for the faunistic structure in beach and infralittoral soft bottom ecosystems McLachlan and Dorvlo, 2005;Schlacher et al, 2007).…”