Littoral macroinvertebrates of acidified lakes in the Bohemian Forest

Abstract

Mountain lakes in the Bohemian Forest, on both the Czech and German sides, were atmospherically acidified mainly in the 1960s-1980s and have since been recovering from acidification. In 2007, we performed the first complete study on littoral macroinvertebrates in all eight lakes. The goals of the study were to 1) compare macroinvertebrates in the lakes during the process of recovery and 2) investigate relations between the occurrence of taxa and water chemistry. Lake water pH varied from 4.6 to 5.7, concentrations of dissolved reactive Al and labile Al ranged from 118-601 and 11-470 µg L −1 , respectively, and DOC concentrations were < 6 mg L −1 . Altogether 73 taxa were identified from all lakes; a positive relationship was found between pH and the number of macroinvertebrate taxa. The highest number of taxa was found in the least acidic lakes Laka and Grosser Arbersee, including the mollusk Pisidium casertanum. In contrast, the lowest diversity was found in the most acidified Čertovo jezero. Cluster analyses of macroinvertebrates and water chemistry suggested pH as the key factor influencing the occurrence of macroinvertebrate taxa. An interesting finding was the occurrence of the boreo-montane water beetle Nebrioporus assimilis in Prášilské jezero, which is the first documented record of this species in the Czech Republic since 1960.

Postglacial succession of caddisfly (Trichoptera) assemblages in a central European montane lake

“…comm). In the Bohemian Forest lakes, stable populations of H. dubius are only known from Laka Lake and Großer Arbersee (Soldán et al 2012;Ungermanová et al 2014), two sites with well-developed littoral macrovegetation (Fig. 1).…”

“…Prášilské Lake has been subject of long-term ecological studies on the recovery of acidified Bohemian Forest lakes (e.g. Fott et al 1994;Ungermanová et al 2014;Vrba et al 2016).…”

“…The recovering lakes are a subject of regular monitoring since 1984, including aquatic insect larvae sampling (e.g. Ungermanová et al 2014;Vrba et al 2016). Currently, a total of 46 species of Trichoptera is known from these lakes and their inflow streams and outlets (Soldán et al 2012).…”

Distribución Vertical De La Diversidad Beta De Macroinvertebrados en Un Lago Oligotrófico De Alta Montaña Neotropical

“…La riqueza taxonómica de macroinvertebrados acuáticos del lago Cristalina (28 morfotipos) es mayor que la reportada para otros lagos tropicales de alta montaña, tanto de la zona andina (7 a 20 taxones por lago) (Posada-García et al, 2008;Alba-Hincapié et al, 2016;Gómez et al, 2016;Tapia et al, 2018) como de América Central (cuatro a ocho taxones por lago) (Alcocer et al, 2021). La riqueza de Cristalina también es mayor a la encontrada en lagos de alta montaña de algunas regiones de la zona templada europea (14 a 23 taxones por lago) (Hamerlík et al, 2014;Ungermanová et al, 2014). Parte de estas diferencias se pueden atribuir a que algunos taxones, como los quironómidos, no se identifican a nivel genérico y lo hacen solo a familia o subfamilia.…”

Constraints on the biological recovery of the Bohemian Forest lakes from acid stress

“…Unlike in the other acidified lake districts worldwide, predaceous Chaoborus larvae have not occurred regularly in the zooplankton of the Bohemian Forest lakes, except for the abundant population of C. obscuripes in the shallow LA (Vrba et al, 2003a) and a few larvae of Chaoborus sp. caught once in the littoral zones of GA, KA, and RA in October 2007 (Ungermanov a et al, 2014).…”