Fethiye Bölgesindeki Banklarda Makrobentik Omurgasızlar Üzerine Araştırmalar

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Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Istanbul University, Faculty of Aquatic Sciences, Department of Marine and Freshwater Resources Management, Turkey

Approval Date: 2004

Thesis Language: Turkish

Student: Elif Özgür

Supervisor: Bayram Öztürk

Open Archive Collection: AVESIS Open Access Collection

Abstract:

SUMMARYINVESTIGATIONS ON MACROBENTHIC INVERTEBRATES IN THE REEFSOF FETHIYE REGIONThe purpose of this study is to determine the marine biodiversity of the natural rockyreefs of Fethiye Region by identifying the species of the phylum Porifera, Arthropodaand Echinodermata and to understand the relationship between their distributionaccording to season, depth, habitat type and distance from the main land.This study showed that macrobenthic invertebrate species of Porifera, Arthropoda andEchinodermata phyla displayed a well-defined pattern, with 80 rare and 4 commonspecies. Presence of the numerous rare species shows that more species can be found inthese areas with further studies.Most of the species were recorded in two of the studied habitats since Porifera wasmostly sampled from the rocky habitats and Arthropoda and Echinodermata from theCystoseira facies. Arthropoda was found to be the most dominant and representativephylum so more species were reported from the Cystoseira facies. As depth increases,the habitats exhibit fewer species. Porifera was mostly found in the depth of 30 meters.However, Arthropoda and Echinodermata were mostly found in the shallow waters tothe depth of 20 meters.Seasonality affects the presence of the species and induces variable patterns, with a lowdiversity in winter-spring and a higher one in summer-autumn. The seasonal fluctuationof the species was mainly seen in Arthropoda while the number of species of Poriferagenerally did not change. Echinodermata was found mostly in autumn.As the locations of the rocky reefs got farther from the main land, the species diversitydecreased. However, in the 6th station (Kabak), the low diversity was found because ofthe absence of Cystoseira facies although it was the nearest reef to the main land.Among the total 84 species reported, 4 of them were Lessepsien and 9 were endemicspecies to the Mediterranean.No study in the Fethiye Region has focused on the macrobenthic invertebrates and therehas been no study on natural rocky reefs in our country. Therefore the results of thisstudy provide the basic data on these subjects.vi