Institute of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Šrobárova 2, 04154, Košice, Slovakia.
Sci Rep. 2024 Sep 27;14(1):22205. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-72738-9.
Caves represent a specific environment with a special microclimate and fauna adapted to it. However, we have still a restricted knowledge on soil fauna communities in an environments with a marked microclimate gradient at the interface between cave and surface habitats. In the present study, we investigated the community patterns of dominant soil microarthropod group, oribatid mites, and their relationship to environmental factors across the microclimate gradient along a transect with seven study sites from cold and wet cave entrance zone to warm and drier deciduous forest. The cold and wet sites showed low oribatid abundances and a high spatial clustering of individuals in comparison to the warm sites. The oribatid mites showed significantly higher abundance and species richness at warm forest sites. Indicator species analysis indicated specific cold-tolerant species that dominated at cold sites of the gradient, but which were absent at the warmest sites. Variance analysis clarified that community composition at sites were significantly driven by environmental factors: temperature, soil moisture, pH and C/N ratio. The study underlines the importance of ice cave entrances as sources of high α-diversity of soil mesofauna and thus the conservation priority of these valuable habitats.
洞穴代表了一种具有特殊微气候和适应其环境的特有动物群的特定环境。然而，我们对于洞穴和地表栖息地之间具有明显微气候梯度的环境中的土壤动物群落仍然知之甚少。在本研究中，我们调查了在从寒冷潮湿的洞穴入口区到温暖干燥的落叶林的 7 个研究点的横截面上，主要土壤微型节肢动物类群——食真菌螨——的群落模式及其与环境因素的关系。与温暖的地点相比，寒冷潮湿的地点的食真菌螨数量较少，个体的空间聚类程度较高。食真菌螨在温暖的森林地点的丰度和物种丰富度显著更高。指示种分析表明，在梯度的寒冷地点占主导地位的特定耐寒物种，但在最温暖的地点不存在。方差分析阐明了站点的群落组成是由环境因素（温度、土壤湿度、pH 值和 C/N 比）显著驱动的。这项研究强调了冰洞入口作为土壤中型动物高α多样性来源的重要性，因此这些有价值的栖息地具有保护优先级。
