Biodiversity and ecology of fauna in percolating water from Slovenian and Romanian caves was studied. Research focused on unravelling the community structure of epikarst fauna, which is carried away by the trickles of percolating water from the epikarst and vadose zones. The major part of the fauna found in percolating water is represented by copepods. This fauna, originating in the epikarst, was analysed and by means of the systematic sampling and

Teratocyclops cubensis Ple¸sa, 1981 (Copepoda, Cyclopidae) is redescribed on the basis of specimens deposited in the collection of the Speleological Institute "Emil Racovitza", Cluj, Romania. The genus Teratocyclops Ple¸sa, 1981 is redeŽ ned, mainly characterized by the following characters of the female: the general habitus of the body, the 11-segmented antennule, the presence of the vestigial exopodite on the antenna, the segmentation of the

The Acanthocyclops kieferi (Chappuis, 1925) complex (Copepoda, Cyclopoida) includes exclusively stygobitic species, mainly widespread in the cave habitats of south-eastern Europe. A new species for the group, Acanthocyclops milotai n. sp., collected from pools supplied by percolation water in a cave in south-western Romania, is described. The new species is distinguished from its congeners by the following characters: the ornamentation pattern of

The contribution deals with evolutionary and taxonomic aspects of the stygobitic ostracod lineage Pseudocandona eremita (Ostracoda, Candonidae). It is based on a comparative study of the morphology of both the carapace and limbs of individuals belonging to eight populations from Romania (three reproducing bisexually, the others by parthenogenesis). Left valves display various outline shapes, classified in two morphotypes, the ''dorsally rounded shape''

Morphology of both the valves and limbs of several parthenogenetic populations of the widespread non-marine ostracod Cryptocandona vavrai Kaufmann (sensu lato) living in groundwater habitats of western (France) and south-eastern Europe (Romania) was examined for the extent of intra- and interpopulational variation. Geometric morphometrics and multivariate statistics were employed for the description of the valve morphological disparity whereas the