Abstract
Distribution of groundwater invertebrate communities in porous aquifers (and their habitats) varies on spatial scales and many attempts have been made to classify these on various scales. The new data-based approach, presented here, classifies the complex distribution of groundwater habitats on a local scale (i.e. along transects of < 100 m) and merges the latest classification approaches at this scale. Data from a regional (i.e. approximately 100 km2) biogeographic groundwater survey was analysed in terms of stability of: community structure, different intensities of surface water influence, and occurrence, together with the distribution of stygobites within those groundwater ecosystems. On the investigated local scale, the faunistic communities’ composition is mainly depending on surface water influence, coupled with immision of dissolved oxygen and organic matter. Derived from this finding, five types of faunistic habitats are proposed: (I) Stressed groundwater habitats, (II) Stable groundwater habitats, (III) Rain fed groundwater habitats, (IV) Surface water fed groundwater habitats, and (V) Hyporheic habitats.
Highlights
According to their occurrence in groundwater or surface water, invertebrates can basically be classified as stygobites, stygophiles and stygoxenes (Thienemann 1926)
Five distinct ecological groups were identified, mainly based on a MDS (Fig. 2), and on a cluster analysis as well as the site particularities (Table 1): (I) stressed groundwater habitats [Stressed] (II) habitats where groundwater was secluded from all surface water influences, was comparably stable in faunistic composition [GWstable] (III) rainwaterfed groundwater habitats [GWrainfed] (IV) surface waterfed groundwater habitats [GWswb], and (V) Hyporheic habitats [Hyporheic]
These characteristics could be reflected by the subterranean invertebrate communities, well described by the GFI and the SIMPER similarity in this survey
Summary
According to their occurrence in groundwater or surface water, invertebrates can basically be classified as stygobites, stygophiles and stygoxenes (Thienemann 1926). Stygobites spend their whole life-cycle completely in groundwater and are well-adapted to low food and oxygen supply (Culver 1982, Hervant et al 1997, Malard and Hervant 1999, Mösslacher and Hahn 2003). Stygophilic invertebrates commonly occur in well food- and oxygen supplied surface waters They can immigrate into groundwater actively, if the conditions there are favourable (Malard et al 1996, Malard and Hervant 1999, Sket 1999).
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