COMPOSITION, STRUCTURE, AND SEASONAL DYNAMICS

OF MACROZOOBENTHOS IN THE TEMSKA AND VISOČiCA RIVERS (SERBIA)

¹IVANA ŽIVIĆ, ²Z. MARKOVIĆ, AND ¹JELENA ILIĆ

¹Faculty of Biology, and ²Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro

Abstract - We investigated macroozobenthos communities in the Temska and Visoèica Rivers at 10 localities during the summer and autumn of 2001. In 46 samplings of quantitative and 10 of qualitative analysis, 101 taxa from 17 groups of macrozoobenthos are identified. The most diverse group is the order Trichophtera (28 species from nine families). Less diverse with (only one species) are Nematomorpha, Hirudinea, Odonata, and Megaloptera. At all of the chosen localities, the most common species are Elmis aenea (70.00%), Ancylus fluviatilis, and Baetis sp. (60.00%). All those localities on the Visoèica and Temska Rivers are very similar. The index of similarity varies from 12.5% (between Vi0 and Te0) to 70.7% (between Te1 and Te2). In the Temska River, the Shannon-Weaver diversity index varies from 1.80 (at Te3) to 2.45 (at Te0). In the Visoèica River, the highest diversity of macrozoobenthos is at the Vi3 locality (2.59), the lowest at Vi0 (1.40). Less diverse macrozoobenthos communities are found at the Vi0 and Te3 localities. At the same time, these localities have the highest values of Simpson's index (0.35 and 0.34, respectively).