Studies on riparian communities in eastern Morocco: coastal dayas at the mouth of the Moulouya River

« Laboratoire d’Amélioration de la Production Agricole, Biotechnologie et Environnement », Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed Ist University, Oujda, Morocco

^* Corresponding author: zitouninaoual@yahoo.fr

Abstract

This paper aims to study the riparian community of coastal dayas at the mouth of the Moulouya River in the northeast of Morocco. We carried out a monthly sampling of riparian fauna on two dayas (EMDI & EMDII) on the Mediterranean coast. Banks of these dayas are an ecotone where terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic species mix. Riparian species dominate the population in richness and abundance: most species are either sporadic (EMDI) or accidental (EMDII). The dominant species are halophilous. Interesting species have been collected from these dayas: Gonocephalum yelamosi, new species for Morocco, Blaps nitens, Dyschirius tensicollis, and Dyschirius africanus, which dayas is a new distribution in the region. Species with the same ecological niches that can compete with each other seem to share the occupation of this environment. The same phenomenon seems to occur for species of the genus Pogonus and Pogonistes, which have populations that reach their maximum expansion at different periods.