EN
The bottom fauna inhabiting two types of ecotones: 1) the transition zone between land and lake water, and 2) the border of a macrophyte bed and open water, situated in different types of littoral, distinguished mainly according to the structure and distribution of macrophytes was studied. The investigations were carried out in five harmonious lakes (from mesotrophic to highly eutrophic) and in one disharmonious (humoeutrophic) in July and September of 1996 and 1997. Both the species composition of zoobenthos and the relative abundance of the most numerous taxa (Tubificidae and larvae of Chironomidae) in ecotones did not seem to depend much on the type of littoral but rather upon the nature of the bottom sediments. The influence of lake fertility in harmonious lakes was clearly expressed mostly in the land-water ecotones where it was demonstrated by the drop of chironomids and increase in tubificids and predators in total faunal abundance with a rise of lake. trophism. The clear pattern in vegetation bed-open water ecotones concerned solely predators which contribution to the total faunal abundance tended to increase with a rise of lake trophic status. The ecotones of the disharmonious lake did not show much differences in comparison with the harmonious lakes except extremely low faunal density in vegetation-open water ecotone, being totally predominated by chironomids. In both harmonious lakes and in disharmonious one the highest faunistic similarities were found within the same types of ecotones, while the two types differed greatly.