COMMUNITIES OF TARDIGRADES (ECDYSOZOA, TARDIGRADA) IN URBAN HABITATS OF THE CITY OF SALTA

GRABOSKY, A; ANDREA X, GONZÁLEZ REYES; ROCHA. ALEJANDRA MARIANA; DOMA, IRENE; OSTERTAG, B; CORRONCA, J. A.; SANDRA RODRIGUEZ ARTIGAS

Jornada; XXXVI Scientific Meeting of the Cuyo Biology Society; 2019

The urban growth in recent decades has increased markedly in the city of Salta, so it was proposed with this work to evaluate thebiodiversity of tardigrades in three urban habitats of the city of Salta with high (A), medium (M) and low (B) vehicular traffic todetect the changes that occur in their communities. A total of 48 lichen and moss samples were extracted, and they were treatedfollowing the usual methodology and specimens and eggs were mounted in polyvinyl-lactophenol. Data analysis was performedusing PAST, PC-Ord7, iNEXT, SPADE and R programs. Three thousand forty-nine specimens (3049) were collected belongingto sixteen species probably some of them are new to science. Habitat A showed the highest abundance (N = 1339), howeverhabitat B turned out to be 1.61 and 1.16 times more diverse than communities M and A respectively. The assemblages of thethree urban communities showed to be quite similar, with a strong dominance of a few species: Macrobiotus hufelandi,Milnesium sp3 andEchiniscus rufoviridis, standing out Paramacrobiotus areolatus in Habitat B. The Principal ComponentsAnalysis (PCA) explained 62% of the total variation in two axes ordering the communities in a nested pattern. In this study, weconclude that there is a process of biotic homogenization in urban habitats, which implies an important loss of species. Thisprocess included the tendency to increase the number of individuals in urban communities, similar community structures andnested pattern among habitats.