Groundwater biodiversity in the Meridional Jura (France): community structure, sampling strategy and biodiversity determinants

GIBERT, J.; CASTELLARINI, F.; DOLE-OLIVIER, M-J.; FERREIRA, D.; LÉFÉBURE, T.; MALARD, F.

Raipur, India

Simposio; XVII International Symposium of Biospeleology Raipur, India; 2004

International Society of Subterranean Biology

The European project PASCALIS (Protocols for the Asessment and Conservation of Aquatic Life In the Subsurface EVK2-CT 2001-00121, 2002 to 2004) concerns way to look at, to evaluate, to predict and to conserve biodiversity in European groundwaters. It provides strategy for biodiversity sampling and mapping, present new data and innovative methods to understand biodiversity patterns, to assess and to conserve the groundwater biodiversity at the regional and European scale. An example will be given for the following region : the Meridional Jura (France). One of the general characteristics of ecological communities is that the number species accumulates with increasing area sampled to reach a plateau. According to the sampling protocol of the project PASCALIS, the species Richness Accumulation Curves showed the 80% of species observed in the karst could be estimated by sampling 30 sites and the 93% of species by sampling 60 sites. The factors driving community structure are the permeability and pore size, oxygen dissolved distance from the Würm glacier and elevation The phylogenographic analysis of Niphargus virei revealed the presence of substantial and unexpected cryptic diversity in a species that was believed to be homogenous and well-defined. The French populations ascribed to Niphargus virei are likely to belong to two very divergent groups, being as divergent from one another as different species of other crustaceans.