Word.ws English Dictionary

epipsammon

epipsammon noun: the community of microscopic species (e.g., diatoms) that attach themselves to grains of sand.

Noun

epipsammon (uncountable)

  1. The community of microscopic species (e.g., diatoms) that attach themselves to grains of sand.
    • The benthic microflora of marine sands includes bacteria, blue-green bacteria (cyanobacteria), autotrophic flagellates, and diatoms. Those attached to sand grains are generally known as epipsammon (Fig. 4.1).2017, Anton McLachlan, Omar Defeo, The Ecology of Sandy Shores, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 63
  2. The community of biota or fauna that live on top of sand.
    • These groups are 1) the epipsammon, or surface-dwelling, generally motile macrofauna; 2) the endopsammon, or burrowing species that are too large to live in interstitial spaces; and 3) the mesopsammon, or interstitial fauna. The epipsammon is limited to a few groups such as fish or birds which are...1980, Ecological Characterization of the Sea Island Coastal Region of South Carolina and Georgia (FWS/OBS; 79/42), volume 3, Fish and Wildlife Service, →OCLC, page 83

Origin of epipsammon

From epipsammic + -on, compare psammon.

Questions about epipsammon

What does epipsammon mean?
Epipsammon means the community of microscopic species (e.g., diatoms) that attach themselves to grains of sand.
What part of speech is epipsammon?
Epipsammon is a noun.

Words near epipsammon in the dictionary

  1. epiprogoitrin
  2. epiproteome
  3. epiproteomes
  4. epiproteomic
  5. epipsammic
  6. epipsammon
  7. epipsocid
  8. epipsocids
  9. epipteric
  10. epipterics
  11. epipterygoid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: epipsammon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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