MARİNE MOLLUSCA of the Libyan waters, the southern Mediterranean Sea

Marine Mollusca of the Libyan waters, the southern Mediterranean Sea

Nairuz Bek-Benghazi, Abdalha Al-Mgoushi, Daw Hadoud, Esmail Shakman

ORCID IDs: N.BB: 0000-0003-2182-3674; A.AM: 0000-0001-7209-039X; D.H: 0000-0001-8317-939X; E.S: 0000-0003-2422-7915

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Tripoli University, LIBYA
Marine Biology Research Centre, Tripoli, LIBYA

Abstract

This study presents an inventory of the marine Mollusca species in Libya and aims at identifying the diversity of them along the Libyan coast, as well as collecting the information about the distribution by using unpublished data of scientific surveys and technical reports as well as samples which were collected along the Libyan coast during two periods (January 2005 to March 2006 and January 2013 to January 2017). The results of this work show that a total of 344 marine Mollusca species belonging to 114 families were distributed mostly along the western coast. Gastropoda had the most numerous species, represented with 188 species (54.39% of total species), and followed by Bivalvia (30.70%). The majority of native species (94.9%) were distributed along the Libyan coasts, whereas most of the non-indigenous species (5.1%) were distributed in the Gulf of Sirt (15.79%). This combined approach allowed to gather a more complete representation of non-indigenous species along the Libyan coast, which should be considered in future monitoring programs. This paper is the first attempt to fill the gap of knowledge about these species in the southeastern Mediterranean coast.

Keywords: Marine Mollusca, Libyan coast, southern Mediterranean Sea, biodiversity

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