Adaptations and Predispositions of Different Middle European Arthropod Taxa (Collembola, Araneae, Chilopoda, Diplopoda) to Flooding and Drought Conditions.
Floodplain forests and wetlands are amongst the most diverse and species rich habitats on earth. Arthropods are a key group for the high diversity pattern of these landscapes, due to the fact that the change between flooding and drought causes in different life cycles and in a variety of adaptations in the different taxa. The floodplain forests and wetlands of Central Amazonia are well investigated and over the last 50 years many adaptations of several hexapod, myriapod and arachnid orders were described. In contrast to Amazonia the Middle European floodplains were less investigated concerning the adaptations of arthropods to flood and drought conditions. This review summarizes the adaptations and predispositions of springtails, web spiders, millipedes and centipedes to the changeable flood and drought conditions of Middle European floodplain forests and wetlands. Furthermore the impact of regional climate change predictions like increasing aperiodic summer floods and the decrease of typical winter and spring floods are discussed in this article.
Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz, Department IV, Becherweg 13, 55128 Mainz, Germany. marxm@uni-mainz.de.
Michael Thomas
MT
Marx
Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz, Department IV, Becherweg 13, 55128 Mainz, Germany. pguhmann@web.de.
Patrick
P
Guhmann
Department of Soil Zoology, Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Edaphobase, P.O. Box 300154, 02806 Görlitz, Germany. peter.decker@senckenberg.de.
Peter
P
Decker
aperiodic flooding; climate change; drought; invertebrates; periodic flooding