mesofaunan.
/ˈmɛsə(ʊ)ˌfɔːnə/, U.S. /ˌmɛzoʊˈfɔnə/, /ˌmɛzoʊˈfɑnə/; see also meso- comb. form. Ecology.
With plural agreement: animals which are intermediate in size between macrofauna and microfauna; esp. macroscopic soil invertebrates such as arthropods, earthworms, and nematodes; spec. those of a particular habitat, region, etc. Also (with singular agreement): a group, class, community, or list of such animals. Cf. meiofauna n.
ΚΠ
1947 G. R. Fenton in Jrnl. Animal Ecol. 16 76/2 The next subdivision, the mesofauna, includes creatures just visible with a hand lens, and at the other extreme those several centimetres long.
1953 P. W. Murphy in Jrnl. Soil Sci. 4 155 The term ‘mesofauna’ does not in fact describe a middle group, but a population more closely allied to the larger micro-organisms and with the additional important distinction that they live in existing soil pores and interstices.
1965 Ecology 46 896/1 The result is a rich organic reservoir of energy available to a mesofauna adapted to cool, moist, and dark environmental conditions.
1999 Soil Biol. & Biochem. 31 1783 Higher protease and arginine deaminase activities in mesocosms with mesofauna may have been caused by faunal grazing on soil microorganisms.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1947