ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Species Diversity of Carabid Beetles and Ants
of Two Reclaimed Tailing Ponds
More details
Hide details
1
Department of Environmental Zoology, Institute of Animal Science, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Kraków, Poland
Submission date: 2017-09-06
Final revision date: 2017-11-13
Acceptance date: 2017-11-28
Online publication date: 2018-06-28
Publication date: 2018-07-09
Corresponding author
Mateusz Okrutniak
University of Agriculture in Krakow, Department of Environmental Zoology, Al. Mickiewicza 24/28, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2018;27(6):2703-2710
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Metal pollution can drastically decrease the diversity of species of many groups of terrestrial
invertebrates. Well-performed reclamation may prevent the loss of species diversity. In this study, we used
multivariable statistical methods to describe the species diversity of carabids and ants originating from
two zinc-lead mine tailing ponds under different degrees of reclamation practices. Although the species
diversity of carabids and ants in both study sites and in both seasons was relatively high, the investigated
communities were dominated by one numerous species. Discriminant analysis indicated that the
difference between study sites is due to the high number of carabid species found in the comprehensively
reclaimed site and the high abundance of several species of ants found in the partially reclaimed site. The
most striking difference in species composition between the study sites was the contribution of forest
species. The comprehensively reclaimed site maintains more species of forest carabids but fewer forest
species of ants in comparison to the partially reclaimed one.