Nous présentons la première étude sur les diatomées terrestres et dulçaquicoles de l'Ile Amsterdam située dans l'Océan Indien du Sud. 90 taxons y ont été dénombrés. Cette flore ne présente pas de similitudes avec celle d'autres îles subtropicales telles que l'Ile Maurice ou l'Ile de la Réunion, mais il y a une ressemblance certaine avec la flore diatomique des îles subantarctiques. Une Classifiaction hiérarchique ascendante (CAH) sépare quatre communautés, probablement sur la base de gradients d'humidité et de pH. La communauté à Pinnularia borealis et la communauté à Luticola mutica préfèrent des endroits plutit secs. La communauté à Nitzschia frustulum var. frustulum est retrouvée dans des endroits plus humides, tandis que la communauté à Frustulia rhomboides n'est observée que dans les tourbières du plateau sommital. Cette dernière communauté est caractérisée par la présence d'espèces acidophiles.

Madagascar has been isolated from other land for about 100 million years. Thus the hydra of the island have been evolving independently of the hydra on the continents during the Tertiary geological period. On the northern continents the species of hydra cluster into four groups. Three species were found in a search of about 100 sites across Madagascar. These species represent two, and perhaps three, of the four groups of species that are found on the northern continents. A green hydra found throughout the island is similar to the European Hydra viridissima. One type of brown hydra, H madagascarensis n.sp., has characters intermediate between those of the vulgaris and braueri groups of continental brown hydra. The third species, unnamed in this paper, belongs to the vulgaris group. One continental group of hydra, the oligactis group, is not represented on Madagascar. The hydra that occur in Madagascar are very similar to some on the continents, indicating that these animals evolve exceedingly slowly.

Keratella mexicana is a recently described species, known from a few localities only. Here we present new information on the distribution and morphology of the species based on a survey of 104 water bodies in Central Mexico. The ultra structural morphology of the trophi and lorica of K. mexicana is studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Empirical models were established, which link the biomasses or productions of the successive planktonic trophic levels in lakes of different depth and trophic status. Published data on 56 lakes were analysed, using both least-square and reduced-major-axis regressions. Reduced-major-axes regression technique was used in order to take into account variability due to both bottom-up and top-down forces. In shallow lakes, the energy transfer efficiency between phytoplankton and zooplankton decreases with increasing trophy. An inverse tendency appears in deep lakes. However, when considering only the oligo- and mesotrophic temperate lakes, the mean primary and secondary productivities per unit of area are about the same in shallow and in deep sites. On the other hand, shallow water bodies are characterized by a smaller mean size of the crustacean species, a lower mean biomass of zooplankton and a higher P zoo/B zoo ratio than deep lakes, probably as a response to the predation by fish. While the consumers seem to have a strong influence on the size structure and biomass of plankton, the energy flows between the trophic levels could be largely controlled by bottom-up forces.

Two species of superfamily Cytheracea from Skadar Valley (Montenegro), are presented in this paper. Leptocythere pseudoproboscidea n.sp., collected in a spring is very close to Leptocythere proboscidea Klie, 1939, an endemic species of the Ohrid Lake. Paralimnocythere karamani (Petkovski, 1960) occurred in two localities : river and spring. Until now, this species was considered endemic in the Ohrid-Prespa region. Its known distribution is non extended westwards and its presence in Skadar Valley confirms exchanges between faunas of Ohrid and Skadar drainage areas.

Artificial substrates buried in stream sediments at the karst/floodplain interface were used to examine the spatial and temporal variations of the stygobite Amphipods Niphargus rhenorhodanensis (two stations in France) and Pseudoniphargus sp (one station in Morocco) populations. One station («Verna», France) was supplied by karst water. The other two stations («Pissoir», France and «Grotte du Chameau», Morocco) were supplied by both karst and surface waters. The dynamics of the populations was found to depend on several interacting factors: spates, geological characteristics, location of the sediment in relation to karstic water supplies and depth within the sediment.

Dix lacs du Rwanda ont été caractérisés à partir des résultats de nombreuses pêches expérimentales standardisées. L'analyse en composantes principales et l'analyse de regroupement appliquées sur les captures des espèces de poissons montrent que les différentes espèces se rangent le long d'un continuum sur une structure curvilinéaire indiquant une augmentation du nombre d'espèces d'amont en aval du réseau fluviatile Nyabarongo-Akagera. La classification des lacs montre l'existence de trois groupes : les lacs d'altitude, pauvres en espèces, les lacs de la vallée de la Nyabarongo, moins pauvres, et les lacs de la dépression de l'Akagera, à plus grande biodiversité. Cette disposition des peuplements de poissons et des lacs montre l'importance de la rivière Nyabarongo- Akagera dans l'écologie des écosystèmes lentiques rwandais.