Chironomids (Diptera) of Temporary and Permanent Ponds in Central Italy: a Neglected Invertebrate Group in Pond Ecology and Conservation

Abstract

In spite of their ubiquity and the numerous species present in all freshwater ecosystems, chironomids have generally been considered only at the family, subfamily, or tribe level in ecological studies because of the difficulties of specific or generic identification of larvae. We investigated the chironomid communities in 21 astatic ponds in central Italy with the aim of examining the differences between temporary and permanent ponds and within three contrasting mesohabitats. In March, May, and June 2002 we collected a total of 40 taxa (species, species groups, and genera) of chironomids in 13 temporary and eight permanent ponds located in four protected areas along the central Italian coast near Rome. Chironomid taxa discriminated the two pond types along a wet phase duration gradient, with permanent ponds showing higher taxa richness and densities mainly due to their larger size, lower nutrient contents, higher oxygen concentrations, more transparent water, and greater macrophyte species richness than temporary ponds. Moreover, some taxa showed a clear preference for different mesohabitats (i.e., Cotynoneura scutellata, Isocladius sylvestris, and Paratanytarsus spp. for macrophyte beds; Chironomus spp. and Psectrotanypus varius for central sediments; and Smittia sp. for littoral sediments). The results indicate that chironomids apparently offer a good proxy for describing pond characteristics (i.e., wet phase duration, mesohabitat features) as well as the entire macroinvertebrate fauna.

Microdistribution of macroinvertebrates in a temporary pond of Central Italy: Taxonomic and functional analyses

“…On the contrary, composition and abundance of aquatic plants (Waters and San Giovanni, 2002), substrate heterogeneity (Heino, 2000), depth, granulometry composition and oxygen content (Heino, 2000;Brinkhurst, 2002) seem to govern macroinvertebrate distribution in lakes. In contrast, relatively few studies have addressed the spatial distribution of the entire macroinvertebrate communities in ponds and wetlands (Oertli, 1995;De Szalay and Resh, 2000; Van der Meutter et al, 2008), or have been limited to only one taxonomic group (Fairchild et al, 2003;Bazzanti et al, 2008). In particular, three recent studies have dealt with the distribution of macroinvertebrate taxa, their size structure and functional aspects (Della Solimini et al, 2005;Bazzanti et al, 2009) in different mesohabitats (sensu Pardo and Armitage, 1997) of twenty-one temporary and permanent ponds in Central Italy.…”

Functional characteristics of macroinvertebrate communities in Mediterranean ponds (Central Italy): Influence of water permanence and mesohabitat type

“…Overall, 123 samples of macroinvertebrates proved suitable for analysis. A more detailed description of the sampling methods can be found in Della , Solimini et al (2005) and Bazzanti et al (2008).…”

“…Due to their drastic numerical decrease caused by urban and agricultural practices, ponds are studied for several aspects related to biodiversity patterns as a function of environmental conditions (i.e. Bazzanti et al, 2000Bazzanti et al, , 2003Bazzanti et al, , 2008Batzer et al, 2004;Studinski and Grubbs, 2007;Della Bella et al, 2005, 2007, and for the assessment of their conservation value (Collinson et al, 1995;Oertli et al, 2002;Nicolet et al, 2004;Solimini et al, 2008).…”

Does interspecific competition drive patterns of habitat use in desert bat communities?

“…527 Similarly, sympatric cryptic Pipistrellus species in the UK 528 partition their foraging habitat to the extent that P. pipi-529 strellus actively avoids riparian habitats, which are pre-530 ferred by P. pygmaeus, despite their greater insect resource 531 value (Nicholls and Racey 2006). 532 Although the diversity of Dipterans increases with pond 533 area and hydroperiod (Bazzanti et al 2006), some species 534 may be found exclusively in lower volume, shorter-lived…”