Occurrence Patterns, Photoperiod and Dispersion Ability of the Non-Marine Ostracoda (Crustacea) in Shallow Waters

Abstract

Patterns of species occurrence, dispersion ability, habitat preferences and sampling time can be important factors on the species composition. To understand effective roles of these factors on non-marine ostracods, samples were collected from 98 different shallow aquatic bodies from Osmaniye and Kilis provinces in Turkey. Total of 16 and 12 species were identified from the two provinces, respectively. All species are reported new for these provinces. Three species (Heterocypris incongruens, Ilyocypris inermis, I. bradyi) demonstrated the most frequent occurrences and abundances in up to seven different habitats. Species diversity and abundance were at least two times higher in natural habitats (streams, creeks) than artificial habitats (reservoirs, troughs). Numbers of species with and without swimming setae on the second antenna was not significantly different between lentic and lotic habitats. A positive co-occurrence pattern was found between Neglecandona neglecta and I. inermis while the rest of the species pairs exhibited random co-occurrences to each other. Canonical Correspondence Analysis showed 80.8% of correlation between species and environmental variables when water temperature was the major effective factor (P<0.05) on species occurrence. Sampling time did not make difference on the numbers of species between morning (06:30-11:58 a.m.) and after noon (12:05-19:52 p.m.). Results suggest that species occurrence seems to be related to species-specific characteristics in its n-dimensional niche where species deals with several other factors.