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Benthic invertebrate communities of lakes in the Polar Ural Mountains (Russia)

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Abstract

As in many Arctic regions, the fauna and biodiversity of Polar Ural lakes are not widely known. However, the fauna of these northern, relatively pristine lakes has recently become threatened due to industrial development in the Arctic. In this study, the zoobenthos of 13 relatively large lakes and 9 small ponds was studied during the summer (July and August) from 2003 to 2013. The aim was to conduct a taxonomic inventory of benthic communities in the Polar Ural lakes by combining available literature data with new information about the species composition of the zoobenthos. The lowest diversity and abundance values were found in cold deep lakes with large boulders and little algal growth, whilst the highest values were found in lakes with well-developed aquatic and riparian vegetation. In the littoral zone, Crustacea (Harpacticoida, Cyclopoida, and Cladocera) were the most abundant group, followed by Chironomidae, Nematoda, and Oligochaeta. Insects such as Plecoptera, Trichoptera, and Coleoptera accounted for only 4% of the total abundance. In the profundal zone, Chironomidae larvae and Crustacea were numerically dominant, and the share of Ostracoda was much higher than that in the littoral zone. Overall, a total of 208 invertebrate taxa (including 160 species) were recorded. The most diverse groups were Oligochaeta (43 taxa), Crustacea (36), Trichoptera (25), Mollusca (28), and Chironomidae (22). In the future, the faunas of these Arctic lakes can be used as indicators of regional and global climatic changes and in investigations of the adaptation of aquatic invertebrates to extreme environments.

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Acknowledgements

I am sincerely grateful to my colleague V. I. Ponomarev for organizing the field trips and helping sample the zoobenthos. I express my gratitude to the staff of the Department of Ecology, Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Department of Russian Academy of Sciences, for assistance in the identification of the fauna: M. A. Baturina, E. B. Fefilova, and Y. S. Rafikova. I would like to thank Professor Vivienne Jones of University College London and Nature Research Editing Service for English editing. The author is also thankful to Tarmo Timm, Jennifer Lento and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved an earlier version of the manuscript. The work was performed within the framework of the State Task of the Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, No. 0414-2018-0005 (No. AAAA-A17-117112850235-2) on the theme “Distribution, systematics and spatial organization of fauna and animal populations in taiga and tundra landscapes and ecosystems in Northeastern European Russia” and was funded by RFBR and Komi, Project Number No. 18-44-110017.

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  1. Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Syktyvkar, 167982, Russian Federation

    Olga A. Loskutova

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Loskutova, O.A. Benthic invertebrate communities of lakes in the Polar Ural Mountains (Russia). Polar Biol 43, 755–766 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02677-4

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