Can periodically drained ponds have any potential for terrestrial arthropods conservation? A pilot survey of spiders

0386141 - BC 2013 RIV PL eng J - Journal Article
Tropek, Robert
Can periodically drained ponds have any potential for terrestrial arthropods conservation? A pilot survey of spiders.
Polish Journal of Ecology. Roč. 60, č. 3 (2012), s. 635-639. ISSN 1505-2249
R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP504/12/2525; GA ČR GD206/08/H044; GA MŠMT LC06073
Institutional support: RVO:60077344
Keywords : anthropogenic sites * Araneae * colonisation
Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour
Impact factor: 0.503, year: 2012

Periodical summer drying has been a common practice in fishponds management in many intensively used European landscapes. It was shown that these ephemeral biotopes are often colonised by endangered plant communities typical for riverine gravel beds. However, almost nothing is known about their conservation potential for terrestrial arthropods. Spiders at a periodically drained bottom of the Manovicky rybnik pond, western Czech Republic, were surveyed from May to September 2007 by pitfall-trapping, vegetation sweeping and individual collecting. Although just 25 spider species were found, several of them are considered as regionally important. Psammophilous Steatoda albomaculata (nationally nearly threatened) and xerothermophilous Tricca lutetiana are regionally very rare species occurring mainly in warmer areas; the Manovicky rybnik pond is only their second known locality in the study region. Hypsosinga heri and H. pygmaea, two recorded hygrophilous species, are regionally very rare species of colder, near-natural wetlands. The combination of several other hygrophilous and xerothermophilous species, caused by habitat diversity of extreme substrate conditions, forms the spider community at the site. Co-occurrence of these species and abiotic conditions was typical for periodically disturbed riverine gravel beds, an almost vanished habitat in Central Europe. The relatively broad habitat relations diversity of the species inhabiting this very small (1.5 ha) site and the occurrence of several regionally important species indicate that periodically drained pond bottoms could be important anthropogenic habitats for terrestrial arthropods conservation.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0216773