Terrestrial isopods were studied in the Dubravica peat bog and surrounding forest in the northwestern Croatia. Sampling was conducted using pitfall traps over a two year period. Studied peat bog has a history of drastically decrease in area during the last five decades mainly due to the process of natural succession and changes in the water level. A total of 389 isopod individuals belonging to 8 species were captured. Species richness did not significantly differ between bog, edge and surrounding forest. High species richness at the bog is most likely the result of progressive vegetation succession, small size of the bog and interspecific relationships, such as predation. With spreading of Molinia grass on the peat bog, upper layers of Sphagnum mosses become less humid and probably more suitable for forest species that slowly colonise bog area. The highest diversity was found at the edge mainly due to the edge effect and seasonal immigration, but also possibly due to high abundance and predator pressure of the Myrmica ants and lycosid spiders at the bog site. The most abundant species were Trachelipus rathkii and Protracheoniscus politus, in the bog area and in the forest, respectively. Bog specific species were not recorded and the majority of the species collected belong to the group of tyrphoneutral species. However, Hyloniscus adonis could be considered as a tyrphoxenous species regarding its habitat preferences. Most of collected isopod species are widespread eurytopic species that usually inhabit various habitats and therefore indicate negative successive changes or degradation processes in the peat bog.
Within the course of a recent, extensive bryophyte survey across the whole country, eight moss taxa have been recorded for the first time in Croatia: Conardia compacta (Drumm. ex Müll. Hal.) H. Rob., Cynodontium tenellum (Schimp.) Limpr., Dichodontium flavescens (Dicks.) Lindb., Fissidens fontanus (Bach. Pyl.) Steud., Orthotrichum philibertii Venturi, Rhabdoweisia crispata (Dicks.) Lindb., Schistidium trichodon (Brid.) Poelt var. trichodon and Tortella fasciculata (Culm.) Culm.. In addition, new localities of five rare taxa are presented: Didymodon tophaceus subsp. sicculus (M.J. Cano, Ros, García-Zam. J. Guerra) Jan Kučera, Ephemerum serratum (Hedw.) Hampe, Mannia triandra (Scop.) Grolle, Oxystegus tenuirostris (Hook. Taylor) A.J.E. Sm. and Sphaerocarpos michelii Bellardi. Ecological and chorological data are provided for each of the reported taxa. Concluding, at the current state of knowledge, Croatian bryoflora includes 705 taxa, out of which 541 mosses, 162 liverworts and two hornworts.
Abstract:The morphometric analyses and genetic variability assessed by RAPD markers have been used to analyse relations among six Serapias taxa from Croatia (S. istriaca, S. pulae originally described as hybrid, S. ionica, S. vomeracea, S. lingua and S. cordigera). S. istriaca distributed in southern Istria and the island of Lošinj and S. pulae stenoendemic taxon distributed only in southern Istria S. ionica is endemic to the Ionian and Dalmatian islands, while the remaining taxa are more widely distributed. The obtained results shows that the endemic S. istriaca is a well characterised taxon, that S. pulae is a hybrid between S. istriaca and S. lingua and that the hybrid is morphologically and genetically more similar to S. lingua than the second parental species S. istriaca. The division into the subsections Steno-, Medio-and Platypetalae is founded based on the floral morphology while the division into the sections Serapias and Bilamellaria is not evident in the quantitative morphological and genetic analyses. Furthermore, considerable genetic resemblance between S. vomeracea and S. ionica was established.
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