Effects of Climate Conditions on Aquatic Clitellata in Western Carpathian Spring Fens
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Spring fens are groundwater fed wetlands which vary in water chemistry, ranging in groundwater mineral richness from calcium-poor acidic to calcium-rich tufa-forming types. We explored 41 isolated spring fens across the Czech and Slovak Republics, where we quantitatively sampled clitellate assemblages and obtained continuously measured water temperature along with other environmental and climatic conditions. dbRDA showed Ca+Mg, TOC, oxygen, inorganic matter, and mean air temperatures as the most important environmental predictors of clitellate assemblages. Variance partitioning revealed pure significant effects of mineral richness 12% (gross 27%) and group of temperature variables 4% (gross 20%), organic matter was not significant. Total diversity, diversity of sexually reproducing, and diversity of aquatic species were linearly related to variables linked with mineral richness and organic matter, and responded unimodally to water temperature variability based on GLM modelling. Oxygen and mean air January temperature were main drivers of abundance of surface active species, oxygen and temperature variability of abundances of terrestrial species. Dependency of spring fen clitellates on specific local temperature conditions was confirmed, and hence their sensitivity to climate warming is highly probable. Supported by the Czech Science Foundation (P505-16-03881S). |
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