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Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity
Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural events. The 6 April 2009, 6.3-M(w) earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy) markedly altered the karstic Gran Sasso Aquifer (GSA) hydrogeology and geochemistry. The GSA groundwater invertebrate community is mainly comprised of small-bodied, colourless, b...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Nature Publishing Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep06273 |
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author | Galassi, Diana M. P. Lombardo, Paola Fiasca, Barbara Di Cioccio, Alessia Di Lorenzo, Tiziana Petitta, Marco Di Carlo, Piero |
author_facet | Galassi, Diana M. P. Lombardo, Paola Fiasca, Barbara Di Cioccio, Alessia Di Lorenzo, Tiziana Petitta, Marco Di Carlo, Piero |
author_sort | Galassi, Diana M. P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural events. The 6 April 2009, 6.3-M(w) earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy) markedly altered the karstic Gran Sasso Aquifer (GSA) hydrogeology and geochemistry. The GSA groundwater invertebrate community is mainly comprised of small-bodied, colourless, blind microcrustaceans. We compared abiotic and biotic data from two pre-earthquake and one post-earthquake complete but non-contiguous hydrological years to investigate the effects of the 2009 earthquake on the dominant copepod component of the obligate groundwater fauna. Our results suggest that the massive earthquake-induced aquifer strain biotriggered a flushing of groundwater fauna, with a dramatic decrease in subterranean species abundance. Population turnover rates appeared to have crashed, no longer replenishing the long-standing communities from aquifer fractures, and the aquifer became almost totally deprived of animal life. Groundwater communities are notorious for their low resilience. Therefore, any major disturbance that negatively impacts survival or reproduction may lead to local extinction of species, most of them being the only survivors of phylogenetic lineages extinct at the Earth surface. Given the ecological key role played by the subterranean fauna as decomposers of organic matter and “ecosystem engineers”, we urge more detailed, long-term studies on the effect of major disturbances to groundwater ecosystems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4152748 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41527482014-09-08 Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity Galassi, Diana M. P. Lombardo, Paola Fiasca, Barbara Di Cioccio, Alessia Di Lorenzo, Tiziana Petitta, Marco Di Carlo, Piero Sci Rep Article Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural events. The 6 April 2009, 6.3-M(w) earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy) markedly altered the karstic Gran Sasso Aquifer (GSA) hydrogeology and geochemistry. The GSA groundwater invertebrate community is mainly comprised of small-bodied, colourless, blind microcrustaceans. We compared abiotic and biotic data from two pre-earthquake and one post-earthquake complete but non-contiguous hydrological years to investigate the effects of the 2009 earthquake on the dominant copepod component of the obligate groundwater fauna. Our results suggest that the massive earthquake-induced aquifer strain biotriggered a flushing of groundwater fauna, with a dramatic decrease in subterranean species abundance. Population turnover rates appeared to have crashed, no longer replenishing the long-standing communities from aquifer fractures, and the aquifer became almost totally deprived of animal life. Groundwater communities are notorious for their low resilience. Therefore, any major disturbance that negatively impacts survival or reproduction may lead to local extinction of species, most of them being the only survivors of phylogenetic lineages extinct at the Earth surface. Given the ecological key role played by the subterranean fauna as decomposers of organic matter and “ecosystem engineers”, we urge more detailed, long-term studies on the effect of major disturbances to groundwater ecosystems. Nature Publishing Group 2014-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4152748/ /pubmed/25182013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep06273 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Galassi, Diana M. P. Lombardo, Paola Fiasca, Barbara Di Cioccio, Alessia Di Lorenzo, Tiziana Petitta, Marco Di Carlo, Piero Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title | Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title_full | Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title_fullStr | Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title_full_unstemmed | Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title_short | Earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
title_sort | earthquakes trigger the loss of groundwater biodiversity |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep06273 |
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