Abstract
Peat bogs are highly endangered and very sensitive habitats in Central Europe. Their high water table, acidity and characteristic climate determine their specialized flora and fauna with numerous rare species. Peat bogs are threatened by soil erosion and nutrient infiltration due to forestry management or grazing. Several small, natural peat bogs exist in the Carpathians, mainly covered with birch and pine forests. Here we assessed the effect of geological location, peat bog size and tree species on the spider fauna. We collected spiders with pitfall traps in eight peat bogs in Eastern Transylvania. We identified several species of high nature conservation value, regarded to be rare in the Central-European fauna. We found higher species richness, abundance and diversity in birch forests than in pine forests. The open canopy of birch forests may allow open habitat specialists to occur in high densities in these forests. Species composition was affected by geological location, indicating that the regional fauna of peat bogs in different mountain ranges are isolated. However, we found no significant effect of habitat area on spider assemblages, the valuable tyrphophilic spider fauna was present even in the smallest peat bog. Peat bog spider fauna requires specific habitat conditions, we suggest that preserving hydrological properties and water quality even in the smallest bogs would conserve the specialized fauna.
Highlights
Wetland ecosystems provide both unique biodiversity and substantial ecosystem services, they are globally decreasing in their condition and diversity through habitat loss, climate change and pollution (Keddy 2010)
Peat bogs can be viewed as habitat islands, studying their biota can show how these isolated habitat patches contribute to regional biodiversity, and how their size and geographical distribution affects their nature conservation value
Our study was conducted in eight peat bogs in Eastern Transylvania, Romania, all are situated in remote areas and majority of the sampled bogs are hardly accessible
Summary
Wetland ecosystems provide both unique biodiversity and substantial ecosystem services, they are globally decreasing in their condition and diversity through habitat loss, climate change and pollution (Keddy 2010). Peat bogs can be viewed as habitat islands, studying their biota can show how these isolated habitat patches contribute to regional biodiversity, and how their size and geographical distribution affects their nature conservation value. Peat bogs are foremost islands of a very specific habitat and as such harbor a specialist arthropod fauna (Spitzer and Danks 2006). Species richness and composition of individual patches may depend on local factors, such as the size of the habitat patch and idiosyncratic differences in local vegetation, and on the regional species pool. Species composition may differ significantly, with the total number of specialist species being generally higher in larger patches (Bonte et al 2002)
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