specimens, a hand-help thermometer for recording water temperature. Due to the awkward 

 nature of the cave, pool dimensions were estimated Counts of animals in each pool were made, 

 but these should be considered estimates because of the ditTiculty of seeing all objects in the 

 water, and difficult accessibility to some pools. A complete cave count was not made, because 

 we ceased our exploration when the stream was encountered. 



RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 



1999 Survey: Algal Cave was entered on 27 September 1999, and checked for aquatic cave 

 invertebrates up to the 5 m climb, short of the "permanent" stream about 200 m from the 

 entrance (see Campbell et al. 1977 for a cave map). In the cave passage visited, six pools were 

 checked for the presence of aquatic invertebrates. Each pool was occupied by one or more of the 

 four species detected. Water temperature of all pools was about 6.5°C (44°F). There was no 

 surface flow connecting the first pool with the others, but there was increasing surface flow 

 farther into the cave (ahhough the amount was never more than a gentle trickle about 0.5 cm 

 deep). Obviously, at some time during the year there is flow between all pools. Water in the 

 cave stream in early September 1975 was 4°C, with a pH of 7.43 and a hardness of 102 ppm 

 (Campbell 1975). Temperatures on 25 August 1977 of the pools where the first aquatic 

 invertebrate collections were made (Campbell et al. 1977) were 6°C, nearly the value recorded in 

 1999. The pools are not directly linked by surface flow to the large stream, at least during the 

 visits so far reported, but instead appear to be fed by seeps and rivulets nearer the cave mouth. 



All pools were relatively shallow (mostly < 20 cm) and narrow (0.5 m wide) but varied in 

 length from 2-6 m. Pool bottoms were lined with flat pebbles and fine mud or silt that was easily 

 disturbed when capturing specimens, thereby obscuring vision if care wasn't taken to avoid 

 stirring up the pool bottoms. Pools often had organic debris in them (floating bodies of cave 

 crickets, true flies, opiliones ["daddy longlegs"], fragments of vegetation, wood rat droppings, 

 and fungus) that supplied the food requirements of the aquatic invertebrates observed in 1977 

 and 1999. 



The six pools we checked in 1999 (#l-#6 in sequence from the cave mouth) extended 

 from Pool # 1 in Campbell et al. (1977) to the intersection with the rivulet shown on their map 

 Faunal counts (estimates) for each pool were as follows: Pool #1 - ca. 60 isopods. Pool #2 - ca. 

 300 isopods, 6-8 planaria, 1 oligochaete worm; Pool #3 - ca. 20 isopods, 10 planaria, 8 

 amphipods. Pool #4 - ca. 300 isopods, 10-20 planaria, 2 oligochaete worms. Pool #5 - ca. 40 

 isopods, ca. 10 amphipods, 15 planaria. Pool #6 and rivulet - ca. 250 isopods, several amphipods, 

 several planaria. Ten isopods total were collected from Pools #1 and 2; four amphipods were 

 collected from Pool #3, three planaria were collected from Pool #4, and one oligochaete worm 

 was collected from Pool #4. The oligochaete worms were not previously reported for Algal 

 Cave (Campbell et al. 1977). 



Species Accounts: The following are discussions of the species observed, with expert 

 determinations of species identifications where possible. 



Isopods (Class Crustacea) : The ten specimens collected in 1999 were sent to Dr. Jerry J 

 Lewis at the University of Louisville. He identified the isopods as 3 males and 7 females of 

 SalmaseUiis steganothnx Bowman, originally described from Horseshoe Lake, Alberta (see 

 Clifford and Bergstrom 1976), and since reported in Alberta from Cadomin Spring and 



