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This work presents an updated list of water beetles of the Elmidae and Dryopidae occurring in Morocco. The study is based on an exhaustive review of literature (1914–2021) complemented with field and laboratory investigations on more than 2200 collected individuals between 1997 and 2019. As a result, 30 species belonging to nine genera of Elmidae and Dryopidae are listed with their distribution in Morocco and North Africa. From the 30 species, Elmidae are represented by 21 species and seven genera, whereas Dryopidae are represented by nine species and only two genera. A chorological analysis shows that the Elmidae and Dryopidae from Morocco are essentially Mediterranean (60%), with a very high prevalence of endemics in the broadest sense (77.78%) within this group, whilst those Palearctic species (33.33%) or Afrotropical-Mediterranean (6.67%) are clearly less represented. This chorotype pattern is notably different to that observed in other aquatic beetle families in the same study area, where the percentage of endemic species was much lower. Moroccan Dryopoidea include seven endemic species exclusive to Morocco, six Maghrebian and one Ibero-Maghrebian species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This checklist summarises our present knowledge on Moroccan distribution of the water beetles of five families: Gyrinidae, Haliplidae, Noteridae, Hygrobiidae and Dytiscidae. It includes all available faunistic data based on material collected by the authors and from the private collections, as well as from the literature, PhD theses, and other unpublished sources covering a period between 1914 and 2018. The checklist of 112 species of 40 genera is presented with species distributions in Morocco and North Africa. Hydroglyphus major (Sharp, 1882) is reported for the first time from Morocco. Six species (Agabus dilatatus (Brullé, 1832), Hydroporus longulus Mulsant and Rey, 1861, H. nigrita (Fabricus, 1792), H. planus (Fabricius, 1782), Bidessus pumilus (Aubé, 1838) and Ilybius fuliginosus (Fabricius, 1792)) are excluded from the country's fauna. A chorological analysis shows that most species are essentially Mediterranean (60%), whilst those whose distribution is wider in Palearctic (25%) or extends into Nearctic (9.29%) or Afrotropical regions (5.71%) are clearly less represented. This chorotype pattern is similar to that observed for other aquatic insects in the same study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetlands present an important diversity of life and are very productive. Many biotic and abiotic factors intervene in their functioning. Thus, understanding this functioning requires, among other characteristics, physicochemical characterizations of their waters and the determination of the specific structure of the stand that inhabits those environments. In this work, the authors were interested in the characterization of the waters of Lake Sidi Boughaba, wetland and biological reserve registered with the RAMSAR convention. This lake is made up of three parts of unequal volume and duration of flooding. The results showed that the studied living environment is very heterogeneous physicochemical and that from one biotope to another the values of the majority of the physicochemical parameters can vary from single, to double, to three times, and even more. Only the pH, oxygen, and ammonium content are relatively stable. In addition, the results showed that the aquatic beetle population of the prospected environment consists of 34 species and subspecies, grouped into 9 systematic families and that the Dyticidae family and the Hydrophilidae family are the most represented. Likewise, the biotypological analysis of the population of beetles collected showed the distribution of the 34 inventoried species that are divided into four groups and that, among the 16 physicochemical parameters studied 10 intervene the determination of the specific structure of each of the groups of 'identified species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]