Responses of benthic invertebrates to chemical recovery from acidification

Prosjektleder: Heleen de WitThe report provides an assessment of biological recovery from acidification in freshwater environments in Europe. The report consists of two parts, a regional data analysis based on an international dataset of biological and water chemical records, and a collection of national contributions on monitoring and assessment of biological recovery in different countries. The regional analysis showed that 47% of all included rivers (21 sites, for the period 1994-2018) and 35% percent of all lakes (34 sites, for the period 2000 to 2018) showed significant increases in species richness. Correlations between species diversity and water chemical components (ANC, pH, SO4) were found, supporting that the biological responses were related to chemical recovery. Additionally, the composition of functional traits in rivers underwent significant changes over time. Both parts of the report demonstrate ongoing biological recovery from acidification in European acid-sensitive freshwater environments.Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)publishedVersio

Mayfly Ephemera glaucops (Ephemeroptera, Ephemeridae) recorded in the Czech Republic after almost a century

The mayfly Ephemera (Sinephemera) glaucops Pictet, 1843 has been considered regionally extinct in the Czech Republic, with the last occurrence dating from 1933. Its extinction was connected with the anthropogenic changes of lowland rivers, forming the original habitat of E. glaucops within the area of the Czech Republic. However, the species has been reported as spreading in man-made, often post-industrial waterbodies in Germany, The Netherlands and Austria since the 1970s.We report E. glaucops from the Czech Republic, based on 27 larvae collected in the North Bohemia lignite basin in 2018. All individuals were found at one locality – a small kaolin pit in the shallow part near the shore, mostly without macrophytes. We provide details about the locality and morphological diagnostic characters of E. glaucops. This study highlights the importance of post-industrial sites for aquatic biodiversity as surrogate biotopes for degraded original habitats

Community metabarcoding uncovers vast diversity and a lack of barcode references for aquatic invertebrates in Carpathian spring fens

Recent studies on diversity of stream amphipods proposed that the Western Carpathians have served as an important glacial refugium of freshwater fauna. If this scenario is true, a considerably high molecular diversity can be expected in this biogeographic region also for other taxa. In our project, we aimed to uncover and characterize molecular diversity of benthic macroinvertebrate fauna of spring fens, a well studied and hence convenient model community. Using a DNA metabarcoding approach, we sequenced a fragment of the COI gene of pooled spring fen invertebrate communities from 21 localities in the Western Carpathians. The preliminary analysis of the sequences revealed a substantially higher amount of operational taxonomic units (OTUs), when compared to the number of taxa identified in the same spring fens based on morphological characters. The lack of reference sequences in public databases (Barcoding of Life Database, GenBank) for the majority of the detected OTUs indicates that the Western Carpathian region is not yet sufficiently covered by barcoding efforts, and suggests that there indeed may be a considerable unrecognized diversity of macrozoobenthos. However, most newly uncovered diversity is concentrated in a few taxa such as the dipteran families Tabanidae and Ceratopogonidae, annelid species (complexes) Eiseniella tetraedra and Helobdella stagnalis or the amphipod genus Gammarus. In the future, these findings will be the basis for several levels of research: detailed investigation of seemingly hyperdiverse taxa (phylogeography, phylogeny, reference coverage) and comparison of overall molecular diversity of these communities in the Western Carpathians and neighbouring Bohemian Massif, a region where we expect much lower diversity due to different biogeographic history

New Oligoneuriidae (Insecta, Ephemeroptera) from Iran

Two new species of the mayfly family Oligoneuriidae are described based on larval specimens recently collected in Iran. The first new species, Oligoneuriella tuberculata Godunko & Staniczek, sp. nov., can be distinguished from all its congeners by the presence of pronounced protuberances posteromedially on abdominal terga, highly reduced paracercus, large lamella of gill I, and setation on hind margin of middle and hind femora confined to their basal halves. The second species, Oligoneuriopsis villosus Bojková, Godunko, & Staniczek, sp. nov., remarkably belongs to a mostly Afrotropical genus. The new species clearly differs from all its congeners in the shape of setae on the surface of gills and terga, pattern of body colouration, and the shape of posterolateral projections of abdominal segments. Except for the species description, the generic diagnosis of Oligoneuriopsis Crass, 1947 is briefly discussed. COI barcode sequences of both new species are provided and molecular species delimitation is tested using distance-based and likelihood-based approaches, with both new species unambiguously recognised as separate lineages. The analysis of COI also corroborates the respective affinities of both new species, estimated based on morphology. The two new species of Oligoneuriidae described herein highlight the importance of the Middle East as a centre of diversity of this mayfly family within the Palaearctic

Diversity and distribution of Epeorus (Caucasiron) (Ephemeroptera, Heptageniidae) in Iran, with descriptions of three new species

Combining morphological and molecular data in an integrative approach, three new mayfly species of Epeorus (Caucasiron) are described. These include Epeorus (Caucasiron) alborzicus Hrivniak & Sroka, sp. nov. and Epeorus (Caucasiron) shargi Hrivniak & Sroka, sp. nov. from northern Iran, and Epeorus (Caucasiron) zagrosicus Hrivniak & Sroka, sp. nov. from central Iran. They are unambiguously delimited using both distance-based and likelihood-based approaches in the analyses of barcode COI sequences. Each new species is compared with other species of the subgenus and morphological diagnostic characters are provided. Based on extensive sampling of streams throughout the country, the distribution and habitat preferences of all Caucasiron species in Iran are assessed. Altogether, there are now six species recorded, among them also E. (C.) nigripilosus Sinitshenkova, 1976 is reported for the first time in Iran. Five species are distributed in the Alborz Mts. in northern Iran, one species was found in the Zagros Mts. in central Iran