Impact of Environmental Conditions on Bottom Oligochaete Communities in Subsidence Ponds (The Silesian Upland, Southern Poland)

The aim of the study was to estimate the influence of environmental conditions resulting from coal mining on the diversity of bottom oligochaete communities in subsidence ponds. In the ponds studied 17 oligochaete species representing the families Lumbriculidae (1 species), Enchytraeidae (1 species) and Naididae (15 species), in the new sense (Erseus et al., 2008) were collected. The presence of Aulodrilus japonicus Yamaguchi, 1953 and Potamothrix bavaricus (Oschmann, 1913), rare species in anthropogenic water bodies, is noteworthy. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that the important factors influencing oligochaete distribution in the subsidence ponds studied were the type of substratum, the organic matter content of the sediment as well as the mineralization of the water. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)