Diversity of macroinvertebrates positively correlates with diversity of macrophytes in karst ponds

Zelnik, Igor; Gregorič, Neža; Tratnik, Ana

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2018.03.019

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This could be explained by the large dimensions of the pond, which allow for the buffering of the negative effects of cattle and horses wading and defecating. Furthermore, the diffused presence of macrophytes found in GSC could favour macroinvertebrate diversity, as already observed in other karst ponds [65]. This is reflected by the high number of prey taxa found in this site, which could anyway be an underestimation of the total macroinvertebrate diversity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Preliminary Analysis of the Diet of Triturus carnifex and Pollution in Mountain Karst Ponds in Central Apennines

Iannella

Console

D’Alessandro

et al. 2019

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mountain karst ponds are sensitive environments, hosting complex trophic networks where amphibians play a major role, often as top predators. The diet of the Italian crested newt (Triturus carnifex) is still poorly known for populations occupying mountain karst ponds. These are traditionally used as livestock's watering points, leading to water pollution due to excreta and wading behavior. The aim of this paper is to understand the relationship between T. carnifex diet composition, assessed through the stomach flushing technique, and physical and chemical characteristics in mountain ponds, focusing on parameters altered by livestock pressure, such as ammonium concentration and dissolved oxygen. The high diversity of prey items found within the newts' gut contents confirms the generalist diet even in mountain ponds. The number of prey taxa, their relative abundance and Shannon-Wiener diversity index show variations among the sampled sites, related to livestock organic pollution. Moreover, we report the very first European records of microplastic items in amphibians' stomach content, which also represent the first evidence for Caudata worldwide. Our findings suggest that livestock pressure directly influences T. carnifex diet and highlight that the emerging issue of plastics is a threat even in remote high-altitude environments.Water 2020, 12, 44 2 of 15 and inside the ponds determine the eutrophication of the water through the direct and indirect introduction of their excreta [21,22], as we also frequently observed during field campaigns. Even though most of these ponds fall within National and Regional Parks, they are still vulnerable and sensitive to many occurring environmental changes, because of their limited size [23,24]. Considering the alternation of turbid and clear water due to the alternative stable state of ponds [25], it is evident that the increase of non-managed livestock in ponds (especially horses and cows) determines nutrient enrichment, shifting towards turbid water conditions through sediment resuspension and alteration of chemicals, such as ammonium and oxygen concentrations [26,27]. Such physical and chemical modification affects both the macroinvertebrates and the vertebrates in ponds. In particular, the macroinvertebrate community structure changes and negatively influences the amphibians' community; this cascade effect depends on the environmental conditions of the ponds, because of a complex interaction between abiotic and biotic components [22,28,29]. Further, amphibians themselves show high sensitivity to climate [30,31], contaminants [32][33][34] and habitat changes [35,36].Despite their highly threatened status [37,38] and their importance in food webs [39,40], amphibians' dietary ecology in high altitude lakes or ponds has been poorly investigated so far [41,42].In this paper, we analyze how the ponds' alteration due to dense livestock presence could affect amphibians' diet, through the diet analysis of the Italian crested newt, Triturus carnifex, at mountain sampling sites. We study...

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Preliminary Analysis of the Diet of Triturus carnifex and Pollution in Mountain Karst Ponds in Central Apennines

Iannella

Console

D’Alessandro

et al. 2019

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Natural and artificial ponds differed in their productivity (as indicated by plant coverage) and surrounding sward height. Ponds with complex aquatic vegetation structure support increased richness and abundance of macroinvertebrates through provision of refuges and more abundant prey populations (Deacon et al, 2018; Zelnik, Gregorič, & Tratnik, 2018). Artificial ponds were surrounded by taller vegetation that can act as a buffer for surface run‐off and aid improved water quality (Usio et al., 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Artificial agri‐environment scheme ponds do not replicate natural environments despite higher aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate richness and abundance

Reyne

Nolan

McGuiggan

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

1. Farmland ponds are a highly threatened freshwater habitat which has undergone dramatic losses during the last 200 years due to land drainage schemes and agricultural intensification. Agri-environment schemes (AES) incentivize farmers to adopt farming methods to benefit biodiversity, yet there are a paucity of data evaluating the success of artificially created AES ponds as analogues of natural ponds in an attempt to recreate lost environments. 2. We examined variation in environmental parameters and aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate communities between 38 natural ponds and 91 artificial ponds that were created in southwest Ireland (n = 129). 3. Artificial ponds in agricultural grassland did not replicate natural ponds in adjacent semi-natural habitats differing significantly in size, pH, conductivity, productivity (indicated by submerged and emergent plant cover including algae) and surrounding vegetation structure that is, sward height. These differences significantly influenced aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate community structure with a suite of indicator taxa in both natural and artificial ponds. 4. The conservation value of artificial ponds in agricultural grasslands should not be underestimated as they had 43% higher aquatic species richness and 33% higher aquatic species abundance than natural ponds in adjacent semi-natural habitats. 5. Synthesis and applications. We demonstrate that artificial agri-environment scheme ponds created in agricultural grasslands, whilst not direct analogues of natural ponds in adjacent semi-natural habitats, do fulfil a role in preserving high local biodiversity albeit representing a different community of species. Creation of ponds in farmland as well as in adjacent natural habitats could provide a wider range of environmental conditions and richer associated macroinvertebrate communities, increasing landscape connectivity and further enhancing regional biodiversity. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

show abstract

“…Mountain climate prevails in the area, where the average temperature of the coldest month is lower than −3 • C, and the average temperature of the warmest month depends on the altitude and location [35]. Macrophyte and macroinvertebrate communities were studied before in the same ponds and results were published in Zelnik et al [10].…”

Section: Study Sites and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although they were used to water livestock and gardens, they lost their importance when water pipelines were constructed. However, today they represent an important source of biodiversity, like all other types of ponds [1,7,9,10]. Smol and Stoermer [11] suggest that Karstic aquatic habitats are the most interesting environments in which to study algae, especially diatoms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relations between Benthic Diatom Community and Characteristics of Karst Ponds in the Alpine Region of Slovenia

Novak

Zelnik

2021

Diversity

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of this research was to investigate the structure of the benthic diatom community and its relations to selected environmental parameters. We collected samples in 16 karst ponds in the alpine region of Slovenia, where the Alpine karst is found. Since the predominating substrate in these ponds was clay, the epipelic community was analyzed. Hydromorphological characteristics, and physical and chemical conditions were also measured at each site. We found 105 species of diatoms, which belonged to 32 genera. The most frequent taxa were Gomphonema parvulum (Kützing) Kützing, Navicula cryptocephala Kützing, Sellaphora pupula (Kützing) Mereschkowsky (species group) and Achnanthidium pyrenaicum (Hustedt) Kobayasi. The pond with the lowest diversity was found at the highest altitude, while, on the other hand, the most species-rich pond was found at the lowest altitude. Regarding the ecological types, the most common were motile species. We confirmed a positive correlation between the number of diatom species and the saturation of water with oxygen, while correlation between species richness and NH4-N was negative. The content of NO3-N and NH4-N explained almost 20% of the total variability of diatom community. Unlike our expectations, we calculated a negative correlation between the diversity of macroinvertebrates and diatoms, which is probably a consequence of different responses to environmental conditions.

show abstract

Diversity of macroinvertebrates positively correlates with diversity of macrophytes in karst ponds

Cited by 12 publications

References 56 publications

Preliminary Analysis of the Diet of Triturus carnifex and Pollution in Mountain Karst Ponds in Central Apennines

Preliminary Analysis of the Diet of Triturus carnifex and Pollution in Mountain Karst Ponds in Central Apennines

Artificial agri‐environment scheme ponds do not replicate natural environments despite higher aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate richness and abundance

Relations between Benthic Diatom Community and Characteristics of Karst Ponds in the Alpine Region of Slovenia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About