Dominant species of the gastropod fauna from the littoral region in Lake Ohrid of R. Macedonia.

The class of Gastropoda is one of the Lake Ohrid' macrozoobenthic groups, which characterize highest level of endemism. Since the first published references until now, studying the Lake Ohrid's snail fauna represents huge scientific challenge for many malacologists from the world. The high percent of endemic as well as relic forms among the lake's gastropods could be explained by the processes of intralacustric speciation during the history and evolution of this aquatic ecosystem. These processes no doubt have been enabled by the complexity and stability of the Lake's basin. This work represents the results of the dominant species, from both qualitative and quantitative sense of the gastropod fauna from 19 investigated littoral localities of Lake Ohrid. The results from the investigations on gastropod fauna has shown that following species: Chilopyrgula sturanyi, Radix relicta and Valvata stenotrema quailtatively predominates in the samples from the littoral region of the Macedonian part of Lake Ohrid. The quantitative analyses (according to their presence on m2), has shown that the following species predominate: Chilopyrgula sturanyi (6879 No x m2), Theodoxus fluviatilis dalmaticus (6412 No x m2), Pyrgohydrobia grochmalickii (5504 No x m2) and Valvata stenotrema (5009 No x m2).