Stygofauna of the Fresh Waters in Bulgaria

Pattern of richness and distribution of groundwater Copepoda (Cyclopoida: Harpacticoida) and Ostracoda in Romania: an evolutionary perspective

“…The Acanthocyclops genus includes several species from the Tertiary that require warmth to survive in the Romanian Carpathians but whose centre of speciation is considered to be the Balkan Mountains in Serbia and Bulgaria. For example, Acanthocyclops propinquus is found in the Apuseni Mountains and the western area of the Stara Planina in Bulgaria; A. milotai is a regional endemic in the Banat Mountains in Romania and Bulgaria; A. reductus is reported in the Apuseni and Banat Mountains and also found in eastern Serbia (the Serbian Banat); and A. radevi is found in the Banat Mountains in Romania and in western part of Stara Planina in Bulgaria (Damian‐Georgescu, ; Iepure, ; Pandourski, ).…”

An annotated checklist of groundwater Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida (Crustacea, Copepoda) from Romania with notes on their distribution and ecology

“…All the endemic Acanthocyclops are cave dwellers known from the Apuseni Mountains and Banat and belong to the kieferi-group (Iepure 2007;Iepure and Defaye 2008;Iepure and Meleg 2011;Iepure and Oargă 2011;Moldovan et al 2020). The kieferi-species complex is distributed mainly in south-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region and probably they are remnants of a Tertiary relict fauna (Pandourski 2007).…”

“…Eastern Europe has a great diversity of groundwater fauna in karst and non-karst regions distributed from the Black Sea to the highest peaks of the Carpathians and Balkan Mountains. This heterogeneous landscape has been shaped by paleogeographic and paleoclimatic events (Decu and Racoviţă 1994;Pandourski 2007; Iepure et al 2015;Iannella et al 2020). Romania, as a south-eastern country of central Europe, has a distinctive and rich groundwater fauna as compared to the western and the other countries of central Europe (Botoşăneanu 1986;Decu and Racoviţă 1994;Negrea and Boitan 2001).…”