Abstract
Terrestrial flatworms (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida, and Geoplanidae) belong to what is known as cryptic soil fauna of humid forests and are animals not easily found or captured in traps. Nonetheless, they have been demonstrated to be good indicators of the conservation status of their habitat as well as a good model to reconstruct the recent and old events affecting biodiversity. This is mainly due to their delicate constitution, their dependence on the integrity of their habitat, and their very low dispersal capacity. At present, little is known about their communities, except for some studies performed in Brazil. In this work, we analyze for the first time in Europe terrestrial flatworm communities. We have selected two protected areas belonging to the Red Española de Parques Nacionales. Our aims include performing a first study of the species richness and community structure for European terrestrial planarian species at regional and local scale. We evaluate the effect of type of forests in the community composition and flatworms’ abundance, but also have into account the phylogenetic framework (never considered in previous studies) analyzed based on molecular data. We find differences in the species composition among parks, with an astonishingly high diversity of endemic species in the Parque Nacional de Picos de Europa and an extremely low diversity of species in the Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido. These divergent patterns cannot be attributed to differences in physical variables, and in addition, the analyses of their phylogenetic relationships and, for a few species, their genetic structure, point to a more probable historical explanation.
Highlights
Soil fauna communities generally present a structure that is caused by different factors depending on the spatial scales (Ettema &Wardle, 2002)
These groups of organisms allow the reconstruction of old events affecting the generation and maintenance of biodiversity and become excellent indicators of the conservation status of forest soils
In Picos, total terrestrial flatworm abundance and richness per plot were significantly correlated with soil pH values (Supporting information Table S2), presenting higher values of abundance and richness those plots with moderate-to-high pH values (Supporting information Figure S4), while in Ordesa, these correlations were not significant
Summary
Soil fauna communities generally present a structure that is caused by different factors depending on the spatial scales (Ettema &Wardle, 2002). Taxa from soil communities can exhibit the genetic imprint of ancient climatic and geographic events that may have been lost in other organisms with higher dispersal capacity (Pfenninger & Posada, 2002; Sunnucks et al, 2006) As a consequence, these groups of organisms allow the reconstruction of old events affecting the generation and maintenance of biodiversity and become excellent indicators of the conservation status of forest soils. Land planarians are in general sensible to disturbed habitats, some are reported to be adapted to inhabit them (Carbayo, Leal-Zanchet, & Vieira, 2002; Oliveira et al, 2014; Álvarez-Presas, Amaral, Carbayo, Leal-Zanchet, & Riutort, 2015) Based on these features, some studies have highlighted the value of this group of organisms as bioindicators in relation to the habitat perturbations caused by human activities (Sluys, 1998)
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