The first record of Hydrurus foetidus (Villars) Trevisan (Ochrophyta: Chrysophyceae) in Croatia with ecological notes

Abstract

During research into phytobenthos, macrophytes and macroinvertebrates in Bijela rijeka River in the Plitvice Lakes National Park in 2015, Hydrurus foetidus (Villars) Trevisan was recorded for the first time in Croatia. H. foetidus is a macroalga belonging to the group of golden algae or chrysophytes (Ochrophyta: Chrysophyceae). It is a stenotherm species and an exclusive inhabitant of cold mountain streams, preferring a fast-flow environment and riffles. The identification of H. foetidus in Bijela rijeka River indicates high water quality despite the highly modified river morphology and severe anthropogenic impacts received in Plitvički Ljeskovac village. Tijekom istraživanja fitobentosa, makrofita i makrozoobentosa u Bijeloj rijeci u NP Plitvička jezera u 2015. godini, po prvi je puta u Hrvatskoj utvrđena vrsta Hydrurus foetidus (Villars) Trevisan. H. foetidus je makroskopski vidljiva alga iz skupine zlatnožutih algi (Ochrophyta: Chrysophyceae). To je stenotermna vrsta, isključivi stanovnik hladnih gorskih tekućica koja preferira plitke dijelove s brzom vodenom strujom. Nalaz alge H. foetidus ukazuje na visoku kvalitetu vode u Bijeloj rijeci, unatoč njenoj morfološkoj degradiranosti i antropogenom utjecaju naselja Plitvički Ljeskovac.

New sites of rare cold-water golden algae Hydrurus foetidus (Villars) Trevisan (Ochrophyta: Chrysophyceae) in Croatia

“…The total number of findings of H. foetidus, including the previous finding by Stanković & Leitner (2016), is presented in Fig. 4.…”

“…In Croatia, H. foetidus was firstly recorded in 2015 on a single site in the Bijela Rijeka River in the Plitvice Lakes National Park (Stanković & Leitner, 2016). In spite of many known sites of this species in Europe, descriptions of its adaptations to different habitats and ecological conditions are still mostly missing.…”

Rediscovery of the terrestrial green alga Trentepohlia aurea (Linnaeus) C. Martius (Chlorophyta) in Croatia after 130 years

“…The author, following the 1890 record, states that he failed to rediscover T. aurea, although he made a detailed study of algal flora of the river and its waterfalls. Such temporal gaps in the algological research in Croatia were, unfortunately, common due to the partly unavailable and inaccessible historical literature and the sporadic freshwater macroalgal research (Koletić, 2018), which subsequently led to the erroneous publication of some records of macroalgal taxa as first findings (Stanković & Leitner, 2016;Koletić, 2017).…”

<p><strong>Catalogue of Croatian Freshwater Rhodophytes</strong></p>

“…Systematic papers with summarised literature were published for freshwater Cyanophyceae Schaffner (1909: 446) (Plenković-Moraj 1996) and Chlorophyceae Wille in Warming (1884: 22) (Plenković-Moraj 1997, covering the microalgal component of the Croatian flora. Finally, at the beginning of the 21 st century, papers focused specifically on chrysophycean, phaeophycean and rhodophyceaen macroalgae (Stanković & Leitner 2016, Žuljević et al 2016, Koletić et al 2017, 2018a, 2019a. These contributions provided new insights into the macoralgal flora; however, no systematic overview has been presented to date.…”