Identifying key environmental factors related to plant and crustacean assemblages in Mediterranean temporary ponds

Abstract

The current interest in Mediterranean temporary wet habitats, considered to be habitats of European Community Interest, is mainly due to their characteristic flora and fauna. Several contributions characterize each of these two components separately, but considering them simultaneously could reveal possible interactions and a more complete view of the habitat that would be useful to improve conservation measures. This paper investigates crustacean and plant assemblages in six Mediterranean temporary ponds and their relationship with several environmental variables. Significant positive relationships were found between species richness and Shannon diversity index of plant and crustacean assemblages. Crustaceans had a higher similarity among ponds than plants and, consequently, each pond had a more characteristic assemblage of plants than of crustaceans. The two groups showed a different sensitivity to environmental factors and only two factors affected both: altitude and surface area of the wet system. Disturbances (e.g. grazing by cattle) and pond size were very important for plants, whereas they were irrelevant for crustaceans. On the other hand, distance to the nearest pond, hydroperiod length, and water nitrogen were only important for crustaceans. Although similar trends on richness and diversity were observed for both biotic groups, the use of only one of them for conservation programs would not be sufficient. Our results suggest that simultaneously taking into account several community components would result in a better understanding of ecosystem functionality.