Taxonomic ve ecological assessment of macro benthic fauna of Karasu stream (Sinop)

Karasu stream where the study was done, located at Erfelek City, Sinop Province (Northern Turkey) Sampling was carried out monthly between 2013 Februay and 2014 January from 10 stations. Samples were collected by Kick-sampling method. Benthic samplings were done from 1,25 m2 area with a 5-minute duration by a hand-net. In order to achieve more taxa to be suitable for quantitative analysis triple iterationwas carried out from each station. Among the measured environmental parameters of water (temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH), temperature and dissolved oxygen are the most effective factors on biodiversity of stations. As a result, 18945 individuals of 179 taxa belonging to 5 Phylum were recorded in this study: Oligochaeta (38 taxa, 1157 individuals), Mollusca (12 taxa, 860 individuals), Chironomidae (48 taxa, 5956 individuals), Ostracoda (7 taxa, 65 individuals), Trichoptera (20 taxa, 151 individuals), Malacostraca (11 taxa, 10568 individuals), Nematoda (156 individuals), Planaridae (484 individuals), Pseudoscorpionida (1 taxa, 1 individual), Hexapoda (27 taxa, 2481 individuals) and other Diptera (13 taxa, 2427 individuals) According to frequency index of Soyer (1970); the most dominant taxa in studied area are: Gammarus komareki (30,48 %), G. uludagi (21,66 %), Simulium sp. (5,76 %), Beatis sp. (4,18 %), Bezzia sp. (3,06 %), Heptagenia sp. (2,54 %), Planaria spp. (2,55 %), Pisidium casertanum (2,23 %), Tipula sp. (1,64 %), Leptophlebia sp. (1,51 %) ve Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri (1,10 %) respectly. In the present study about 170 taxa were recorded for the first time from Karasu stream. Keywords: Karasu stream, Taxonomy, Macro fauna, Water quality, Benthic