By Charlie Self
This issue of Cave and Karst Science has a strong biological bias, not because it is a "theme" issue but because this is now a very active area of cave science research.
This paper presents the first extensive study of ostracods (a small bivalve crustacean) in the caves of Turkey. Eleven caves containing water bodies, located in the northern coastal provinces, were searched for this class of invertebrate. Study sites were inside the caves, outside and at the entrance; environmental variables were measured before biological sampling. Seven ostracod taxa (types) were recorded from inside the caves, including species not previously found underground. Two further taxa were found either outside or at an entrance. The authors made a statistical analysis of the environmental similarity of the sites, but could not extend this to the ostracods themselves because of low numbers of individuals and the diversity of their occurrence.
This short report is a follow-up to the author's paper on the network maze caves of the Northern Pennines, published in the last issue of C&KS, volume 39(1). A complete survey of Devis Hole Mine with its associated cave passages is presented. Many of the mining levels are in fact enlarged cave passages and the total length of natural cave found so far has increased to 6.7 km.
Hydrozoa are a group of animals related to jellyfish and corals: most are marine, but a few live in fresh water. Worldwide, there are very few records of hydrozoa from subterranean waters and this is the first time they have been found in British groundwater. Despite sampling 198 sites across Dorset and Devon for the "Groundwater Animals - UK" project, no other occurrence of hydrozoa was found. It therefore remains uncertain whether these hydrozoa colonized the well from the surface (down the well shaft) or by travelling through groundwater pathways in the Chalk bedrock.
The vast extent of the karst of southern China, split into structurally and regionally isolated blocks, has led to the discovery of many new species of invertebrates during recent expeditions. This paper provides the type description of a new species of eyeless, cave-dwelling beetle.
The main part of the paper went right over my head, since it deals with the taxonomy (classification details) and anatomy (description of body parts) of this beetle. This level of detail is necessary when describing a new species, so it is worth scanning through the text to get a rare insight into what high-level speleobiology is about. An appendix gives a brief description and survey of the cave, plus an impressive list of other cave-dwelling invertebrates and fish that were seen during the survey work.
This paper should really offend the old dinosaurs of karst hydrology who are still under the delusion that karst processes only apply to limestone, and that karst caves only form by the complete dissolution of bedrock. (If you are sitting a GCSE Geography exam, be warned, the "correct" answer is still dinosaur.) Anyway, schoolchildren aside, cave scientists have spent decades studying various aspects of incomplete dissolution and recently (October 2012) held an international "Ghost Rock Karst Symposium" in Belgium. Meanwhile in Britain the subject has been largely ignored.
The basic idea of fantomisation is that slow-moving groundwater, travelling along fractures, goes into and partially dissolves the surrounding rock to leave a "phantom" of porous rock within unaltered surrounding bedrock. If the relief of the area then changes to allow significant water flow, the material in some of these phantom "passages" may be washed out to create open and explorable caves. Most of the published literature is in French, where "fantômisation" is considered an aspect of the general term "altération". Might I suggest that future papers published in English use the spelling "phantom", while those in French use their spelling "fantôme" (with the accent).
The second part of the paper deals with volume-for-volume replacement of limestone by clay minerals; this is often patchy and creates apparently buried (i.e. phantom) karst landforms in situ. There is some very good chemistry to explain a suggested mechanism for this.
This authoritative paper does exactly what it says in the title: it is a comprehensive overview of all the animals reported from this well-investigated group of caves. The list includes monkeys and tigers, birds, snakes and page after page of invertebrates. Many species are occasional or accidental visitors from outside, but for an extraordinary number of species these caves are the "type locality". Importantly for the cave zoologist, these tables give definitive references with comments on the probable validity of historical records which go back more than a century.
The present list records 310 species of invertebrate (270 considered reliable) and 59 vertebrates (39 reliable), but economic exploitation and degradation of the cave habitat means that many species are in decline or are no longer found here. There is some hope for the future, as the main cave site (Dark Cave) is now leased to the Malaysian Nature Society.