Simplified schematic of an island's
fauna - all its animal species, highlighted in boxes.
Fauna is all of the
animal
life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for
plants is
flora.
Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to
a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place,
e.g. the "Sonoran
Desert
fauna" or the "Burgess shale
fauna".
Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of
faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all
containing similar fossils.
The name comes from
Fauna, a Roman
fertility and earth goddess, the Roman god
Faunus, and the related forest spirits called
Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name
of the Greek god
Pan, and
panis is the
Greek
equivalent of fauna.
Fauna is also the word for a book
that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first
used by
Linnaeus in the title of
his 1747 work
Fauna Suecica.
Subdivisions of fauna
Infauna
Infauna are aquatic animals that live within the bottom
substratum rather than on its surface. Bacteria and microalgae may
also live in the interstices of bottom sediments. In general
infaunal animals become progressively smaller and less abundant
with increasing water depth and distance from shore.
Epifauna
Epifauna, also called
epibenthos, are aquatic
animals that live on the bottom substratum as opposed to within it,
that is, the
benthic fauna that live on top
of the sediment surface at the seafloor.
Macrofauna
Macrofauna are
benthic or soil
organisms which are retained on a 0.5mm sieve. Studies in the deep
sea define macrofauna as animals retained on a 0.3mm sieve to
account for the small size of many of the taxa.
Megafauna
Megafauna are large animals of any particular region or
time. For example,
Australian
megafauna.
Meiofauna
Meiofauna are small
benthic
invertebrates that live in both marine
and fresh water
environments. The term
Meiofauna loosely defines a group of
organisms by theirsize, larger than microfauna but
smaller than macrofauna, rather than a taxonomic grouping. One
environment for meiofauna is between grains of damp sand (see
Mystacocarida).
In practice these are metazoan animals that can pass unharmed
through a 0.5 – 1 mm
mesh but will be retained
by a 30 – 45 μm mesh, but the exact dimensions will vary from
researcher to researcher. Whether an
organism passes through a 1 mm mesh also depends upon whether it is
alive or dead.
Mesofauna
Mesofauna are macroscopic soil invertebrates such as
arthropods,
earthworms, and
nematodes.
Microfauna
Microfauna are microscopic or very small animals (usually
including
protozoans and very small animals
such as
rotifers).
Other
Other terms include
avifauna,
which means "
bird fauna" and
piscifauna (or
ichthyofauna), which means "
fish fauna".
Fauna treatises
Classic faunas
See also
References
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