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Homage to the Virgin of Ecology, or why an aquatic insect unadapted to desiccation may maintain populations in very small, temporary Mediterranean streams

  • Santa rosalia 50 years on
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Fifty years after the ‘‘Homage to Santa Rosalia’’: Old and new paradigms on biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems

Part of the book series: Developments in Hydrobiology 213 ((DIHY,volume 213))

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Abstract

In temporary streams, the annual constriction of drying is associated with high local extinction risk. To survive in such habitats, organisms with no specific biological traits for coping with dry periods should experience high colonisation rates from permanent reaches of the same basin or from other basins. Hydropsyche siltalai is a widespread caddisfly common in permanent and temporary headwaters reaches in the Mediterranean climate region of the Iberian Peninsula. In this study, we used genetic analyses to test if populations of H. siltalai in temporary streams are resettled from populations of the same basin or from other basins. The geographical distribution of H. siltalai was surveyed in 97 temporary and permanent reaches across four basins; larvae were found in 22 reaches (12 temporary and 10 permanent). Population genetic analyses of 11 selected reaches (6 temporary and 5 permanent) revealed low genetic diversity and no genetic population structure among and within basins. Overall, H. siltalai appeared to disperse well among basins independent of stream temporality. Permanent reaches from different basins act as a source of the individuals that recolonise temporary reaches after local extinctions, indicating a metapopulation structure at regional scale. Moreover, our results support other studies that showed that dispersal among basins is a recurrent pattern in aquatic insects.

Guest editors: L. Naselli-Flores & G. Rossetti / Fifty years after the “Homage to Santa Rosalia”: Old and new paradigms on biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal, 645, 08028, Barcelona, Catalonia

    Cesc Múrria, Núria Bonada & Narcís Prat

  2. Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal, 645, 08028, Barcelona, Catalonia

    Carles Ribera

  3. Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, SW7 5BD, London, UK

    Cesc Múrria

Authors
  1. Cesc Múrria
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  2. Núria Bonada
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  3. Carles Ribera
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  4. Narcís Prat
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Correspondence to Cesc Múrria .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botanical Sciences, University of Palermo, Via Archirafi 38, 90123, Palermo, Italy

    Luigi Naselli-Flores

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Parma, viale G.P. Usberti 33A, 43100, Parma, Italy

    Giampaolo Rossetti

Additional information

This paper is dedicated to Ramon Margalef and inspired by his work, who proposed a similar research topic more than 30 years ago, when current molecular techniques were not available.

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Múrria, C., Bonada, N., Ribera, C., Prat, N. (2010). Homage to the Virgin of Ecology, or why an aquatic insect unadapted to desiccation may maintain populations in very small, temporary Mediterranean streams. In: Naselli-Flores, L., Rossetti, G. (eds) Fifty years after the ‘‘Homage to Santa Rosalia’’: Old and new paradigms on biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. Developments in Hydrobiology 213, vol 213. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9908-2_14

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