Contribution to the Study of The Pedofauna In Southern Algeria (Djelfa Forest, Algeria)

Abstract

This study compares the soil fauna populations of two Aleppo pine sites in the semi-arid bioclimatic zone. One is located at Moudjbara, and the other at Senalba Chergui in the steppe of the Wilaya of Djelfa. Analysis of the soil sample inventories revealed a total of 479 specimens belonging to 9 classes, 16 orders, 38 families and 41 species. The Moudjbara fauna remains the best represented in terms of abundance, with a rate of 53% of the total number, as well as in terms of richness for all taxa combined, 23 families and 26 species compared with 15 for each of the above-mentioned ranks. On the basis of the data collected, it is clear that the Moudjbara forest seems to offer ecological conditions that are more conducive to the establishment of a more diversified community of soil fauna than the Sénalba Chergui forest. The Sénalba Chergui forest is the least rich in species and the least abundant in terms of numbers of individuals. The equitability values for the two biotopes surveyed tend to approach the value of 1, which implies that all the species are more or less equally distributed between them.