engleski

Establishing the monitoring of cave invertebrate fauna and habitats in Croatia

Croatian Biospeleological Society made a proposal for monitoring targeted species of cave invertebrates and habitat types, based on two years research project carried out in 15 caves in Šibenik – Knin County including the Krka National Park in Croatia. Species were selected based on national level legislation (i.e. strictly protected) and different ecological classification. Habitats were selected based on EU legislation, i.e. habitat types 8310 Caves not open to public and 8330 Submerged or partially submerged sea caves of the Habitats Directive. Selected caves also differ in size, diversity of terrestrial and aquatic habitats (including anchialine), disturbance degree caused by human activity, and encompasses oligotrophic, mesotrophic and eutrophic (bat colonies) habitats. We have tested the hypothesis that cave habitat can be monitored through the fauna composition (qualitative) and species abundances (quantitative) monitoring. Besides habitat monitoring, our results were supplemented with monitoring the species of different biology, with affinities for different habitat types. Microclimatic parameters were measured in selected caves using data loggers. During research we have tested and applied different methodologies: biodiversity census of the entire cave (for small caves only) ; census of the 1 m2 plots (in large caves) ; abundance assessment of targeted terrestrial and aquatic species (observed from the coastal line and during cave diving) ; mark-recapture method ; pitfall traps (without fixative) ; aquatic traps (without killing) and photographing of sessile aquatic fauna. Altogether 28 species of Serpulidae, Araneae, Isopoda, Amphipoda, Decapoda, Diplopoda, Chilopoda, Collembola, Diplura and Coleoptera were studied. Numerous new findings on ecology, affinities and behavior of studied species were collected. Although monitoring proposals were tested on a relatively small number of species, we believe that they can be applied to several hundred taxonomically close and/or ecologically similar taxa. Monitoring proposals were submitted to the Croatian Agency for Environment and Nature.

monitoring ; caves ; NP Krka

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