Post-mining calcareous seepages as surrogate habitats for aquatic macroinvertebrate biota of vanishing calcareous spring fens
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | We studied nine seepages (i.e. spring-fed habitats) located at two neighbouring spoil heaps in the North-Bohemian brown-coal basin (Czech Republic), characterised by basic water pH, calcium carbonate precipitation, high heavy metal and sulphate concentrations. Along with these nine artificial calcareous seepages, we also sampled macroinvertebrates at 15 natural and well-preserved calcareous spring fens to compare species richness and assemblage similarity between these two specific systems. Our study revealed that post-mining calcareous seepages harboured unusually taxa-rich macroinvertebrate assemblages (158 taxa), despite their harsh conditions related to extreme water chemistry. Diptera with 85 taxa were the most diverse group reaching comparable taxa richness as dipteran assemblages in natural calcareous spring fens. According to Sorensen pair-wise dissimilarity, dipteran assemblages of post-mining and natural sites were more similar in the composition of habitat specialists than that of generalists, showing a strict relation of specialist assemblages to specific environmental conditions of post-mining and natural sites. We can therefore conclude that calcareous post-mining seepages may provide biodiversity refuges for a high number of aquatic invertebrates, including spring habitat specialists and nationally threatened species. |
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