Origin, diversity and distribution of freshwater epigean amphipods in Maghreb

Abstract

Northern Africa, although one of the world hotpots of biodiversity, is poorly studied and the freshwater fauna living in this part of the world remains partly unknown. This study focused on the diversity and distribution of the poorly known epigean freshwater amphipods. We performed an exhaustive analysis of the literature on this group of crustaceans and sampled 106 additional localities from the eastern part of Algeria and in Tunisia. Our results showed an important diversity with 25 species (including the presence of at least three new undescribed species) and a very high rate of endemism with 52% of species occurring at on only 1 or 2 sites. We also highlighted a very low diversity on each site with only 4.4% of sites harboring more than 1 species. The comparative distribution of certain species between Europe and Maghreb and also between the western and eastern part of Northern Africa allow us to discuss some hypotheses about the factors underlying this endemism and the biogeographical origin of species. However, our study revealed a general lack of knowledge in the region, especially in the South of Morocco and Algeria. Hence, more information would be needed to propose adapted conservation strategies of freshwater fauna in Maghreb.

The Recent non-marine ostracods of Tunisia: an updated checklist with remarks on their regional distribution patterns and ecological preferences

“…In addition to the above mentioned studies on ostracods, other lines of investigation have recently contributed to increasing available knowledge about invertebrates of Tunisian inland waters, such as aquatic beetles (Touaylia et al, 2011), erpobdellid leeches (Ahmed et al, 2013), (Turki and Turki 2010;Marrone et al, 2016;Stoch et al, 2016), freshwater brachyurans (Marrone et al, 2020), and epigean amphipods (Ayati et al, 2019).…”

Conservation of freshwater biodiversity in Tunisia in a climate change context: combining amphipod distribution data and molecular analyses to improve priorities

“…A minimum of 10 individuals was collected from scarcely populated sites, without standardization of the sampling time but usually less than 2h of sampling effort. Indeed, when two amphipods species co-occurred in the same site, the proportion of each species is relatively balanced (Ayati et al 2019) and rarely exceed 90% of the number of individuals for the dominant species (except in the case of biological invasions, Piscart et al 2011). In the laboratory, the amphipods were identified down to the morphospecies level based on the available taxonomic keys (Ayati et al 2018;Fadil and Dakki 2003;Grintsov 2009;Özbek and Ustaoğlu 2007;Pinkster 1993, Piscart et al 2013.…”

A New Species of Freshwater Amphipods Echinogammarus (Amphipoda, Gammaridae) from Algeria

“…The Mediterranean area is one of the most important hotspots of gammarid diversity in the Palearctic inland surface waters [1]. However, for most of the species known in the European coast of the basin, knowledge about their diversity in the North African part of the basin remains limited [2][3][4]. The number of described species slightly increased since the description of Echinogammarus simoni (Chevreux 1894) in Algeria and Tunisia.…”

“…The number of described species slightly increased since the description of Echinogammarus simoni (Chevreux 1894) in Algeria and Tunisia. The total number of species known in this part of the world is now 22 [3,5], out of which eight were described since 2001.…”