Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.
Subdivisions of fauna
Infauna
Aquatic animals that live in the substrate of a body of water, especially in a soft sea bottom are these
Epifauna
Epifauna, also called epibenthos, are aquatic animals that live on the bottom substratum as opposed to within it, that is, the benthic fauna that live on top of the sediment surface at the seafloor.
Macrofauna
Macrofauna are benthic or soil organisms which are retained on a 0.5mm sieve. Studies in the deep sea define macrofauna as animals retained on a 0.3mm sieve to account for the small size of many of the taxa.
Megafauna
Megafauna are large animals of any particular region or time. For example, Australian megafauna.
Meiofauna
Meiofauna are small benthic invertebrates that live in both marine and fresh water environments. The term Meiofauna loosely defines a group of organisms by their size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna, rather than a taxonomic grouping. One environment for meiofauna is between grains of damp sand (see Mystacocarida).
In practice these are metazoan animals that can pass unharmed through a 0.5 – 1 mm mesh but will be retained by a 30 – 45 μm mesh,[1] but the exact dimensions will vary from researcher to researcher. Whether an organism passes through a 1 mm mesh also depends upon whether it is alive or dead.
Mesofauna
Mesofauna are macroscopic soil invertebrates such as arthropods, earthworms, and nematodes.
Microfauna
Microfauna are microscopic or very small animals (usually including protozoans and very small animals such as rotifers).
Other
Other terms include avifauna, which means "bird fauna" and piscifauna (or ichthyofauna), which means "fish fauna".
Other
"Fauna was a term author Aldo Leopold used in describing the fragile environment along the Round River" from: A Sand County Almanac.
Fauna treatises
Classic faunas
- Linnaeus, Carolus. Fauna Suecica. 1746
See also
References
External links
