the journal of biodiversity data NOTES ON GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION “© Check List 2 eg oe Check List 19 (2): 177-181 https://doi.org/10.15560/19.2.177 > PENSUFT. First record of the genus Anatopynia Johannsen, 1905 (Diptera, Chironomidae) from Slovakia, in a semi-permanent oxbow lake ZUZANA VRABLOVA!, IGOR KOKAVEC’, TOMAS NAVARA’, MIROSLAV MLAKAl, LADISLAV HAMERLIK”’? 1 Water Research Institute, Bratislava, Slovakia « ZV: zuzana.vrablova@vuvh.sk « MM: miroslav.mlaka@vuvh.sk 2 Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia « IK: igor.kokavec@savba.sk « TN: tomas.navara@savba.sk « LH: ladislav.hamerlik@umb.sk 3 Department of Biology and Ecology, Matej Bel University, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia * Corresponding author Abstract. We present the first record of Anatopynia plumipes (Fries, 1823) from Slovakia. Larva of this species was found in a semi-permanent oxbow lake, a remnant of a plesiopotamal-type side arm of the Danube River. Keywords. Danube Floodplain, macroinvertebrates, monitoring, Pannonian ecoregion Academic editor: Fabio Laurindo da Silva Received 12 January 2023, accepted 28 February 2023, published 16 March 2023 Vrablova Z, Kokavec I, Navara T, Mlaka M, Hamerlik L (2023) First record of the genus Anatopynia Johannsen, 1905 (Diptera, Chironomidae) from Slovakia, in a semi-permanent oxbow lake. Check List 19 (2): 177-181. https://doi.org/10.15560/19.2.177 Introduction Semi-permanent waters dry up irregularly in exception- ally dry years. Compared to permanent waters, semi- permanent waters show less spatial heterogeneity and greater water level fluctuations (Sahugiullo et al. 2007). Species richness and abundance in semi-permanent waters is intermediate compared to permanent and temporary waters, suggesting that the length of the hy- droperiod is an important determinant of species di- versity and abundance (Tarr et al. 2005). Characteristic species of such habitats have often evolved opportunis- tic or pioneering traits with a variety of drought-surviv- al mechanisms. The Danube floodplain has been affected in the past by extensive river regulation, agriculture, and forestry. Exceptionally negative interventions, such as the con- struction of the Gabcikovo Hydro-electric Power Plant (GHPP) in Slovakia, have caused the separation of the floodplain from the main river channel and in turn, its significant reduction (Lisicky and Mucha 2003). As a result, a decrease in the dynamics of the water regime and an increase in the sedimentation rate have been identified as the main threats to the Danube floodplain (Krno et al. 1999; Farkas-Ivanyi and Guti 2014). Based on the results of the monitoring of aquatic biota these changes have caused decreased macroinvertebrate and zooplankton species diversity and confirmed the posi- tive effect of artificial and natural flooding (Beracko et al. 2016; Ilyova et al. 2017; Krno et al. 2018). Unfortu- nately, some large aquatic invertebrate groups, such as chironomids, have been excluded from long-term mon- itoring of the GHPP impacts on the Danube since 1997, but were reestablished in 2020. Beside the fact that in- cluding chironomids will increase the reliability of the ecological interpretation of the aquatic biota’s response, it also shows that it has a potential to bring valuable fau- nistic information. In the present paper, we report the finding of a chi- ronomid Anatopynia plumipes (Fries, 1823), the only representative of genus Anatopynia Johannsen, 1905 (Diptera, Chironomidae) from the Palearctic region. The species has been found in most European countries (Fig. 1) and inhabits various types of medium-sized standing waters. Even though larvae of the genus have previously been documented in Slovakian limnological studies (see Bitusik and Hamerlik 2003 and referenc- es therein), interestingly, the taxon has never appeared ©The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 178 Ciéov oxbow lake r 17°43'48"E 17°42'00"E 17°45'36"E Check List 19 (2) NPE Zed? N.P2.8t. 2b N.teoP 2p > new record [] known distribution Nu S,St.£e 17°47'24"E 17°49'12"E Figure 1. Anatopynia plumipes, location of the new record in Slovakia and its geographic distribution. Data sources: Ashe and O'Connor (2009); Baranov (2011); Milogevié et al. (2011); Spies and Saether (2013); Orendt et al. (2014); Cerba et al. (2020); GBIF Secretariat (2022). in either national checklists (Bitusik and Brabec 2009) or international inventories (Spies and Seether 2013). Thus, this discovery is the first confirmed record of the genus for the Slovak fauna. At the same time, to our best knowledge, it is the first time the species has been found in a semi-permanent habitat, shedding new light on the species life history. Methods The study site is a remnant of a plesiopotamal-type side arm of the Danube River, Ci¢ov oxbow lake, which re- mained after being cut off by a flood barrier (Figs. 1, 2). The site is hydrologically unstable and depends on the hydrological regime of the Danube, as it is con- nected to the river during extreme floods. By autumn the site may partially dry out, with the remaining wa- ter forming a pool in the middle of the lake. In 2022 (and previously also in 2018) the site dried completely, and water remained only in a small depression (Fig. 2B). In the spring, the side arm gets reconnected with the main channel of the Danube and fills with water. The structure of the macrophyte community is also driven by this hydrological regime. The bottom of the oxbow lake is covered with submerged aquatic plants, such B Figure 2. View of the study site. A. The remnant of the oxbow lake Ci¢ov, showing the water-filled stage in the spring. B. The site almost entirely dry in autumn (September 2022). Photo Igor Kokavec. Vrablova et al. | First record of Anatopynia from Slovakia as Ceratophyllum demersum L., Myriophyllum spica- tum L., Elodea canadensis Michx., Nymphoides peltata (S.G. Gmel.) Kuntze, and Trapa natans L. (Matecny et al. 2020). In spring, when the side arm is full of water (Fig. 2A), several fish species occur here, such as Caras- sius auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Goldfish), Rutilus rutilus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Roach), and Alburnus alburnus (Lin- naeus, 1758) (Bleak) (Kubala et al. 2021). The chirono- mid community of the site is species-poor, and, except for Anatopynia, consists of genera such as Chironomus, which is highly dominant in the community, Procladi- us Skuse, 1889, Tanypus Meigen, 1803, Glyptotendipes Kieffer, 1913, and Tanytarsus van der Wulp, 1874. Table 1 shows basic environmental variables of the site. Kick samples were taken on 26 April 2022 within routine monitoring of the Danube and its side arms focusing on the impact of the GHPP on the environment. The sam- pled area (ca. 0.625 m? in total) was about 0.3 m deep and the habitat sampled represented 100% organic-rich sediment. Results Anatopynia plumipes (Fries, 1823) Figure 3 New record. SLOVAKIA - NITRA REGION e CHKO Du- najské luhy, Ciéov oxbow lake; 47°46'31.4"N, 017°43' 58.8"E; 112 m alt.; 26.1V.2022; L. Hamerlik et Z. Vrab- lova leg.; benthic sample; kicking technique; 1 larva, slide 1855/22-1. The larva of Anatopynia plumipes (Fries, 1823) rep- resents the first confirmed record of this species for the Slovak fauna. Identification. Fittkau (1962) considered Anatopynia the most primitive genus in the subfamily Tanypodi- nae, although that has been challenged by recent phy- logenetic studies (Silva and Ekrem 2016; Krosch et al. 2017), and placed it in a separate tribe, Anatopyniini. Distinctive larval characters of the genus are 5-seg- mented antennae (unique within Tanypodinae); mul- tiple rows of teeth on pecten hypopharyngis; numerous dorsomental teeth; a robust, strongly curved mandible without basal tooth and with 2 accessory teeth; relative- ly short procersus (ca. 2.5x as long as wide) carrying up to 25 anal setae, compared to fewer than 20 in oth- er Tanypodinae (Cranston and Epler 2013: fig. 3A-E). Anatopynia plumipes is the only Palaearctic species of the genus widespread all over much of Europe, except 179 for its southern and western parts; for a detailed distri- bution of the species see Figure 1. Discussion Larvae of Anatopynia plumipes inhabit shallow ponds and lakes, marshes, and bogs. In the present case, how- ever, the larva was recorded in a semi-permanent habi- tat where this species has not been found before. Larvae can tolerate very low-oxygen concentrations for a long time, and thus they frequently occupy eutrophic waters. The single larva of this species collected at the site is in accordance with findings from the Netherlands, where Vallenduuk and Moller Pillot (2007) documented very few larvae in samples. Due to their univoltinity, larvae of A. plumipes cannot survive in temporary waters, un- less they have the opportunity to find a moist bottom (Vallenduuk and Moller Pillot 2007). Adults are decent fliers, and thus the species has good colonization po- tential, which explains its occurrence in isolated ponds. In European countries, adults fly from mid-February to May (Fittkau 1962; Vallenduuk and Moller Pillot 2007). In the Czech Republic, Anatopynia lives in carp ponds and adults emerge in March, but larvae appear as late as in October, which according to Maténa (pers. comm at Bitusik and Hamerlik 2013) means that oligopause oc- curs in younger instar larvae. On the contrary, Shilova and Zelentsov (1972) found that diapause occurs in the fourth instar larvae and is driven by passing a cold peri- od rather than a photoperiod. As mentioned earlier, the study site has occasionally dried completely in the near past. It is likely that with ongoing climate change, dry- ing will become more frequent and the site will serve as an ideal habitat to study mechanisms how aquatic in- sects deal with periods of drought. Acknowledgements Samples were taken in the framework of the project Moni- toring of the impact of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydro- electric power plant on the environment and LIFE14 NAT/SK/001306. Comments on the manuscript by Peter Bitusik (Matej Bel University) and two anonymous re- viewers are greatly appreciated. Author Contributions Conceptualization: ZV. Investigation: ZV. Methodolo- gy: MM. Validation: LH. Visualization: IK, LH. Writ- ing - original draft: LH. Writing - review and editing: IK, TN. Table 1. Basic characteristics of the monitoring site. Environmental variables are based on monthly measurement in 2010. In case of environmental variables yearly mean values and minimum-—maximum values are shown. Abbreviations: Temp. = water temperature, DO = dissolved oxygen, Cond. = electric conductivity, TP = total phosphorus, TN = total nitrogen (ME SR 2011). Variable (unit) Temp. DO H Cond. 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