The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

We have studied the terrestrial isopod communities from 7 natural habitats consisting in plain, hill and different intermountain depressions from the west and north-west of Romania. The isopods were collected using pitfall traps. In the plain area, the researches were carried out in grassland with a sandy soil. Here we found Metoponorthus pruinosus and Porcellio scaber, but in very small populations. In a meadow with a very humid soil, with swampy and Salix cinerea bush areas, we identified: Porcellium collicola, Trachelipus rathkii and Armadillidium vulgare, all with numerous populations. Present in an acacia forest are: Protrachenonicus politus and Armadillidium vulgare but with little populations. In the hilly zone, studies were made in an oak and hornbeam mixed forest where we identified the following species: Ligidium hypnorum, P. politus, T.arcuatus, T. wächtleri, T. ratzeburgi and T. difficilis. P. politus is the dominant species. Researches has been carried out also on a cleared area, were few P. politus individuals were collected. In the intermountain depressions, in the beech and hornbeam forests, were identified species like Ligidium hypnorum, Hyloniscus transsylvanicus, Trichoniscus carpaticus, P. politus, T. arcuatus and T. wächtleri. P. politus is again the dominant species. In the river meadow with alder we found the same species plus T. difficilis which is dominant here together with P. politus. The sex ratio is much in favor of the females of P. politus and T. rathkii. In the case of P. collicola and A. vulgare the ratio between the two sexes is about 1:1. Among the 14 species identified in the studied habitats, P. collicola, T. difficilis, T. arcuatus, T. wächtleri, T. rathkii and T. ratzeburghi are cited for the first time in the Western and North-Western part of Romania.

KEYWORDS: terrestrial isopods, pitfall traps, sylvan species, paludicolous species, praticolous species, synanthropic species, numeric abundance, relative abundance, sex ratio.