Zoogeography of the bottom Foraminifera of the West-African coast

Abstract

The sediment samples from the continental shelf of West-Equatorial Africa (from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Niger estuary), depths ranging from 0 to 69 m were found to contain 176 bottom foraminiferal species. For the majority of them (126 species), their areas of occurrences were mapped and the peculiar features of the geographical 5 range and distribution were studied. The species natural habitats were established based on the taxonomical revision of the species in study all over the World Ocean based on the collections of the Zoological Institute RAS and wide literary data. The method of perforated cards was used to mark the geographical locations of all of the species studied. In order to establish the species geographic zonal distribution (to-10 gether with their depth habitat) the five characteristic groups of the species were separated: 1. pan-oceanic (cosmopolitan), 2. widely spread tropical-boreal, 3. tropical-law boreal, 4. tropical-subtropical, 5. tropical. The percent of the species of each group among the species composition was established for the fauna of each station and for the whole region. 15