Management in a neotropical show cave: planning for invertebrates conservation

Abstract

Lapa Nova is a dolomitic cave about 4.5 km long located in northwestern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The cave experiences intense tourism, concentrated over a single period of the year, during the Feast of Our Lady of Lapa. In order to evaluate the impacts felt by the invertebrate community from this tourism, a new methodology was proposed. Four types of areas (intense visitation area, outlying visitation areas, moderate visitation areas and no-visitation areas) were sampled for invertebrates. There was one sampling prior and another on the last day of the 128 th feast, to evaluate the effects of visitation on cave-dwelling invertebrates. Results show that invertebrate populations residing in more intensely visited areas of the cave undergo changes in distribution following the event. As a consequence of tourism, invertebrates shift to outlying locations from the visited area, which serve as refuges to the communities. Apparently, the fact that there are places inside Lapa Nova inaccessible to tourists reduces the impact suffered by the invertebrate community, as those sites serve as refuges for cave-dwelling organisms during the pilgrimage. A proper management plan was devised for the tourism/religious use of the cave. It consists basically of delimiting marked pathways for tourists, allowing invertebrates to seek shelter at locations outside visited areas and keeping no-visitation areas off-limits to tourism based on the results of the visitation effects on cave-dwelling invertebrates.

Are inner cave communities more stable than entrance communities in Lapa Nova show cave?

“…This cave experiences intense tourism, concentrated over a single period of the year, during a religious festival in honor of the Virgem da Lapa ("Virgin of the Cave"), which occurs early in the month of May. This intense tourism has severe impacts on invertebrate fauna, as well as changes in the spatial distributions of the community (Pellegrini and Ferreira 2012). Tourism is more intense at the main entrance of the cave.…”

“…This type of use can modify patterns such as temperature, humidity and speleothem growth (Lobo 2015), and modify distribution patterns of populations inside subterranean environments (e.g. Moldovan et al 2003;Bernard et al 2010;Pellegrini and Ferreira 2012;Guil andTrajano 2013, Faille et al 2015). As an example, high impacts due to intense tourism were detected in Ursilor Cave (Transylvania, Romania), which demonstrated drastic reduction of two endemic cave beetles in sectors with visitation (Moldovan et al 2003).…”

“…Moldovan et al 2003). Troglobites are more frequently found in deeper and more isolated cave areas, with greater environmental stability (Peck 1976, Tobin et al 2013, and in areas of lower impact degree caused by tourists (Moldovan et al 2003, Pellegrini andFerreira 2012). Although Novak et al (2012) indicated that terrestrial troglobite fauna is more diverse and randomly distributed in entrance areas (corresponding to the first 10 meters of the cave) and in the shallow subterranean habitat.…”

Linking spatial scale dependence of land-use descriptors and invertebrate cave community composition

“…Despite their fragility, caves are under several anthropogenic pressures, and only few studies evaluated how such human activities can affect the invertebrate cave communities, such as inadequate tourism (e.g. Poulson et al 1995, Moldovan et al 2003, Pellegrini and Ferreira 2012. Such studies are even scarcer when considering human impact at landscape scale, such as agriculture, urban development, deforestation and mineral resources extraction .…”

The first survey on harvestmen in Brazilian artificial cavities, with notes on distribution and natural history

“…However, few studies registered the presence of these arthropods in artificial cavities in Brazil (Gnaspini and Trajano 1994, Bernardi et al 2010, 2011, Ázara et al 2013) and worldwide (Holmberg et al 1984, Angerilli and Holmberg 1986, Moseley and Hebda 2001, Isaia et al 2011. This is probably due to the small number of faunal surveys conducted in these environments when compared to natural caves (Trajano and Bichuette 2010, Reboleira et al 2011, Silva et al 2011a, Silva et al 2011b, Iniesta et al 2012, Pellegrini and Ferreira 2012, Simões et al 2014, Silva and Ferreira 2015.…”