Publication details
Environmental stability of Western Carpathian spring-fens and its influence on Ostracod assemblages
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Western Carpathian spring fens are unique biotopes hosting a high diversity of various groups of organisms. These groundwater dependent systems are considered as relatively stable environment, however, possible temporal fluctuations in environmental conditions have not been sufficiently studied. In this study we have evaluated the environmental stability, i.e. water and temperature regime, at 34 spring fens and its influence on ostracod assemblages, while controlling for effects of other significant environmental variables and spatial structure. Altogether 20 ostracod taxa were found during one shot sampling in June 2008, 2011 and 2012. Water temperature was recorded every 30 min for 24 months and water levels were measured manually six times (April 2016 to April 2018). The spring fens showed two gradients of environmental stability: in water temperature (i.e., mean July water temperature) and groundwater level fluctuation, which were not correlated. Water temperature amplitude ranged from 4.3 to 17.3 °C and groundwater level fluctuation ranged from 0 to 9.5 cm. Groundwater level fluctuation was the most significant variable driving the spring fen ostracod assemblages. Its effect was only partly shared with Ca+Mg content and spatial structure, which were also significant. However, ostracods showed no response to the gradient in water temperature, in contrast to another microcrustacean group, harpacticoids, co-occurring at the same sites, which were strongly dependent on the thermal regime. We suggest that ostracod species with affinity to spring environment are not necessarily cold stenothermal and to a certain degree they can tolerate fluctuations in water temperature. |