The biospeleology in Romania

The biospeleology in Romania

General informations

The first biospeleological researches in Romania were started by the Austrian and Hungarian zoologists, especially in Transylvania and Banat, while these regions were at that time under austro-hungarian occupation. They studied mainly the beetles, but neither the spiders, nor the myriapods were forgotten.

In reality, the flourishing period for the Romanian biospeleology begins with the creation of the Speleological Institute in Cluj, in 1920. The triumvirate formed by Emil Racovita as manager, Rene Jeannel (from France) and Piere Alfred Chappuis (from Switzerland) as deputy managers started a research program covering the romanian territory and also other European and African countries.

From biogeographical point o view the territory of the country can be divided in 5 biospeleological provices: the Oriental Carpathians as far as the valley of Olt, the Meridionals Carpathians between Olt, Timis and Cerna valleys, the Banat Mountains, the Apuseni Mountains and, Dobrogea.

The karstificable surface represents 1.9 % of the romanian territory and its geographical distribution is unequal. This state is valuable also for the underground faunal distribution.

The underground fauna

Aquatic fauna

About 193 stygobionts from the following groups have been quoted in Romania: Tricladida, Oligochaeta, Archiannelida (with a relict of the tertiary seas species, Troglochaetus beranecki), Hirudinea(the only one known cave species in this group founded in Movile Cave, belongs to Haemopis genus), Nematoda, Gastropoda, Ostracoda, Cladocera, Copepoda, Syncarida, Isopoda, Amphipoda, Acari. 113 species are endemical for Romania.

Terrestrial fauna

the number of the troglobionts (250) is bigger than those of the stygobionts (193) and their degree of endemism is more accentuated: 90% for the terrestrial fauna instead of 60% for the aquatical one. Below are presented the caves' best represented groups with troglobionts and troglophiles species.

Oligochaeta (without true troglobionts representatives), Gastropoda, Isopoda, Pseudoscorpionida(18 blind and without pigments species),Opilioni, Palpigradi, Aranaeamong the 29 troglobiont taxons, 23 are in Carpathians and 6 in Dobrogea), Acariterrestri (many species in the underground, but only 3 of them well adapted), Diplopoda (myriapods, all endemic), Chilopoda (underground representatives from Lithobiidae and Cryptopidae family, the last one being represented by two species from Adam Cave and Movile Cave), Collembola, Diplura, Thysanura, Hymenoptera, Trichoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera (the last five groups are forming the parietal association, at the entrance part of the caves), and least but not last the Coleoptera. This is the best represented group in Romania, with 149 endemic troglobionts, representing 60% of the terrestrial underground species. Ninety-seven percent of these are from Bathysciinae subfamily (86 species) and from Trechinae subfamily (59 species). All Bathysciinae are endemic for Romania. They are blind and unpigmented. Among Trechinae, some species preserve reduces eyes or ocular traces. The underground beetles are distributed in every biospeleological province. Among the vertebrates, the baths are the only ones in romanian caves. There are seven species that can be considered troglophile.

SOME EXAMPLES

Three different underground systems were throughly studied. Their peculiar topo- and microclimatic conditions determinated the selection of these caves for ecological studies.

Movile Cave (Dobrogea)

This cave is supplied by thermal waters (20^oC) that are rich in sulphide hydrogen. This chemical compound enebles the chemosynthetical processes. The originality and unicity of this cave is given by the production in situ of the organical matter through chemosynthesis and, also by a diversity of faunistical groups.

Thermophiles and thiophiles animals have colonized the underground environment of this region during different climatic periods, most probably after the Sarmatian Sea retirement from the meridional region of Dobrogea. The list of animals taken into account in this cave include 30 new troglobiontic or stygobiontic species, some of them from groups with no other cave species.

Scarisoara Glacier Cave (Transylavania)

In the deepest part of this natural underground glacier, the temperature (year around) never fall under the freezing point. In this part of the cave is the place where cave beetles can be found. The dynamic of the underground population depends on the seasonal fluctuations of the ice. Sometimes individual have been observed on the ice.

Adam Cave (Baile Herculane)

This cave has two galleries; one have a thick layer of bat guano while the other one is crossed by an warm air current (40^oC) charged with vapours. Therefore, it looks like a tropical oasis in a temperat region. Troglobiont and thermophile guanophiles, as well as a relict species of Uropodine are the dominant fauna in Adam Cave.

This text belongs to Oana Moldovan