Water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia) of riparian springs in a small lowland river valley: what are the key factors for species distribution?

Andrzej Zawal; Robert Stryjecki; Edyta Buczyńska; Paweł Buczyński; Joanna Pakulnicka; Aleksandra Bańkowska; Tomasz Czernicki; Katarzyna Janusz; Agnieszka Szlauer-Łukaszewska; Vladimir Pešić

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.26895v1

Water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia) of riparian springs in a small lowland river valley: what are the key factors for species distribution?

Andrzej Zawal ¹, Robert Stryjecki², Edyta Buczyńska², Paweł Buczyński³, Joanna Pakulnicka⁴, Aleksandra Bańkowska¹, Tomasz Czernicki¹, Katarzyna Janusz¹, Agnieszka Szlauer-Łukaszewska¹, Vladimir Pešić⁵

1 Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Limnology, Institute for Research for Biodiversity, Centre of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

2 Department of Zoology, Animal Ecology and Wildlife Management, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Lublin, Poland

3 Department of Zoology, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Lublin, Lublin, Poland

4 Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection, University of Warmia and Mazury Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland

5 Department of Biology, University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.26895v1

Published: 2018-04-26
Accepted: 2018-04-26

Subject Areas: Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Zoology, Freshwater Biology
Keywords: inundation, permanence, crenotypic species, landscape factors, synecological groups

Copyright: © 2018 Zawal et al.
Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Zawal A, Stryjecki R, Buczyńska E, Buczyński P, Pakulnicka J, Bańkowska A, Czernicki T, Janusz K, Szlauer-Łukaszewska A, Pešić V. 2018. Water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia) of riparian springs in a small lowland river valley: what are the key factors for species distribution? PeerJ Preprints 6:e26895v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26895v1

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of disturbance factors – flooding and desiccation – on the distribution of water mites in the riparian springs situated in the valley of a small lowland river, the Krąpiel. The landscape factors and physicochemical parameters of the water were analysed in order to gain an understanding of the pattern of water mite assemblages in the riparian springs. Three limnological types of springs were examined (helocrenes, limnocrenes and rheocrenes) along the whole course of the river and a total of 35 water mite species were found. Our study shows that flooding influences spring assemblages, causing a decrease in crenobiontic water mites in flooded springs. The impact of intermittency resulted in a high percentage of species typical of temporary water bodies. Surprisingly, the study revealed the positive impact of the anthropogenic transformation of the river valley: preventing the riparian springs from flooding enhances the diversity of crenobiontic species in non-flooded springs. In the conclusion our study revealed that further conservation strategies for the protection of the riparian springs along large rivers would take into account ongoing climatic changes and the positive impact of the anthropogenic transformation of river valleys.