Kterými cestami znovuosídlují vodní bezobratlí toky?
| Title in English | Which pathways do aquatic invertebrates use to repopulate streams? |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Recolonization of streams after drying is a key process influencing the recovery of aquatic invertebrate communities. As part of the H2020 DRYvER project (869226), we focused in 2023 on evaluating the effectiveness of four main recolonization mechanisms: downstream drift, upstream migration, aerial colonization, and hyporheic migration. We aimed to assess their contribution to community recovery through a pilot study. During a two-week experiment on a small tributary of the Velička River in the White Carpathians, sterile substrate boxes (in three replicates) were installed in the channel. These boxes were designed to allow recolonization from only one of the aforementioned directions, and were supplemented with controls allowing unlimited recolonization. In terms of the direction of recolonization, downstream drift and hyporheic migration proved to be the dominant pathways for both total abundance and taxonomic diversity, while upstream migration and aerial colonization were less effective. The results showed a different effectiveness of individual recolonization mechanisms in restoring the taxonomic and functional composition of the community. The study also contributed to explaining the link between species traits and the use of recolonization pathways, helping to understand the recovery dynamics of aquatic invertebrate communities in temporary streams, which are becoming significantly more prevalent in the Czech Republic due to climate change. |
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