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The relationships between land cover, climate and cave copepod spatial distribution and suitability along the Carpathians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2013

IOANA NICOLETA MELEG ,
MAGDALENA NĂPĂRUŞ ,
FRANK FIERS ,
IONUŢ HOREA MELEG ,
MARIUS VLAICU  and
OANA TEODORA MOLDOVAN
IOANA NICOLETA MELEG*
Affiliation:
Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Clinicilor 5, PO BOX 58, 400006, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
MAGDALENA NĂPĂRUŞ
Affiliation:
Tular Cave Laboratory, Kranj, Slovenia Transdisciplinary Center Landscape-Territory-Information Systems, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, 1, N. Balcescu Bd, 010041 Bucureşti, Romania
FRANK FIERS
Affiliation:
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
IONUŢ HOREA MELEG
Affiliation:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Clinicilor 5–7, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
MARIUS VLAICU
Affiliation:
Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Calea 13 Septembrie 13, Bucureşti, Romania
OANA TEODORA MOLDOVAN
Affiliation:
Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Clinicilor 5, PO BOX 58, 400006, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
*
*Correspondence: Dr Ioana Nicoleta Meleg e-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

The distribution of subterranean copepods may reflect the persistence of cave assemblages in relation to the environmental health of the overlying landscape. Areas supporting groundwater fauna were established by modelling the persistence of seven copepod species using a geographical information system (GIS). Environmental drivers were found to influence subterranean copepod distribution in the caves of the Romanian Carpathians. Habitat-based modelling, using ordinary least squares regression and geographically-weighted regression to identify the significant predictors explaining copepod habitat suitability, predicted suitable areas for the selected taxa. The most constant predictor was land cover, a measure of human impact and climate change, followed by precipitation and altitude. The model performed well for the majority of analysed taxa, and the areas predicted as suitable for narrowly distributed taxa overlapped with observed distributions. GIS facilitated the prediction of suitable habitat, and also enabled spatial autocorrelation to be tested. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of sustainable management of the terrestrial surface in limestone areas in conserving copepod biodiversity.

Keywords

conservationcopepodsenvironmental driversgeographically-weighted regressionhabitat suitability modelssubterranean habitats
Type
THEMATIC SECTION: Spatial Simulation Models in Planning for Resilience
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 206 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2013 

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