Estrutura da comunidade meiofaunística em duas praias urbanas da Paraíba: Cabo Branco e Manaíra.

Abstract

The meiofauna, metazoan reduced in size (0.045 mm to 0.5 mm) of interstitial habits, has been used in recent years as found in environmental conditions, due to several advantages conferred the ecology and biology of these organisms. This work aims to characterize qualitatively and quantitatively the meiofauna community from the beaches of Cabo Branco and Manaíra from João Pessoa - PB. Biossedimentológicas samples were collected with the help of a PVC pipe of 20 cm long and 5 cm2 of the inner area, setting up three transects perpendiculars to the beach with a fixed point of collection at each intertidal level with three replicas for a total of 36 samples. ln laboratory samples meiofauníticas were separated at intervals of 0.45 mm mesh and subsequently identified the level of large zoological groups. Qualitatively the meiofauna of the beaches studied were represented by the following taxa: Acari, Amphipoda, Cladocera, Copepoda, Cumacea, Insecta, Kinorhincha, Nematoda, Olygochaeta, Ostracoda, Polychaeta and Turbellaria. The groups that presented the most dominant species were Copepoda followed of Nematoda from Cabo Branco beach and of Nematoda followed of Copepoda from Manaíra beach. ln relation to size the beaches had higher concentration of medium to fine sand. The community structure meiofaunística beaches studied are similar to other features sandy beaches of Brazil.