Effective roles of ecological factors on nonmarine Ostracoda (Crustacea) in shallow waters of Malatya (Turkey)

Abstract

AbstractThis study is aimed to understand effective roles of ecological factors on nonmarine ostracods in Malatya province where 125 different aquatic bodies were randomly sampled during 3–10 August 2015. Totally, 24 of 25 species identified were new reports for the province while Cypridopsis lusatica was a new record for Turkey. The most common species Ilyocypris bradyi was collected from 12 different habitat types. Fifteen species based on their percent similarities among habitat types were clustered into five groups. The first two axes of Canonical Correspondence Analyses explained 66.1% relationship between species and environmental variables. Salinity, water temperature and chloride were found to be the most effective variables on species occurrence. Except chloride and oxidation–reduction potential, there was no significant difference in the mean numbers of environmental variables among the sampling sites with and without species (p < .05). Five most abundant species portrayed the highest ecological tolerance ranges for water temperature. Heterocypris incongruens revealed the highest optimum and tolerance range for dissolved oxygen while Heterocypris salina showed maximum ranges for salinity. Increasing numbers of sampling sites did not increase the percent species numbers per site. Species distribution varied among the habitats. Accordingly, species with swimming ability tend to inhabit more stagnant water bodies while species without such ability were found in flowing waters. This implies that species with good dispersion modes may avoid negative effects of changes in ecological conditions. Thus, our results reveal that biotic factors can also be effective on species as much as abiotic ones.