Invertebrate Cave Fauna 
3 
critically examined and tested against our data in an attempt to gain a 
better understanding of the factors that have influenced the present dis- 
tribution of cave organisms in the study area. Because there have been 
very few detailed studies on the ecology or zoogeography of an entire 
regional cave fauna, this study should provide some interesting new 
insights in these areas. 
The results of the present study will also complement previously 
published data on cave faunas of other areas in the eastern United 
States and will considerably update the data in earlier papers on the 
cave faunas of Tennessee by Barr (1961) and Virginia by Holsinger 
(1963a, 1964). The cave faunas of North America have been sampled 
extensively in recent years and, as a result, are becoming well docu- 
mented. In the eastern United States, regional cave faunas have been 
analyzed to one extent or another in papers by Krekeler and Williams 
(1966) on Indiana, Barr (1967a) on Kentucky, Peck (1970) on Florida, 
Franz and Slifer (1971) on Maryland, Holsinger and Peck (1971) on 
Georgia, Holsinger (1976) on Pennsylvania, Holsinger et al. (1976) on 
West Virginia, Peck and Lewis (1978) on Illinois, and Hobbs (1981) and 
Hobbs and Flynn (1981) on Ohio. 
THE STUDY AREA 
As shown in Figure 1, the study area encompasses the 26 counties 
in western Virginia that contain cavernous limestones, and a part of 
eastern Tennessee. The Tennessee portion includes all of the lower 
Powell Valley (parts of Campbell, Claiborne, Hancock, and Union 
counties); that part of the Clinch Valley extending from the state line 
southwest to the confluence of the Clinch and Powell rivers (most of 
Hancock and Union counties and parts of Campbell, Grainger, and 
Hawkins counties); and the northern periphery of Hawkins and Sullivan 
counties, which lies just south of the state line in the Holston Valley. 
The study area covers parts of seven major drainage basins (Fig. 2), 
detailed discussions of which are included later under “Zoogeography.” 
Geographic and Geologic Relationships 
Excluding the limestone region of Florida, the major cave and 
karst areas of the eastern United States, east of Mississippi River, are 
developed in Paleozoic limestones of the Appalachian Valley and Ridge 
(or simply “Appalachian Valley”), Appalachian Plateau (or Alleghany 
Plateau of some authors), and Interior Low Plateaus physiographic 
provinces (see Fig. 3). Although the Appalachian Valley and Ridge and 
Appalachian Plateau provinces are usually assigned to a major physio- 
graphic division called the Appalachian Highlands, and the Interior 
Low Plateaus province is assigned to the Interior Plains division (see 
