Collins New Naturalist Library - Philip Chapman

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SUC within calcareous rocks is by far the most extensive and important of all cave habitats in terms of the numbers and diversity of its biota. Since their ‘discovery’ of the ‘SUC’ (an environment previously well-known to karst hydrologists as the ‘subcutaneous zone’), Juberthie and Delay have gone on to show that this habitat and its biota not only occurs in limestone and other cavernous rocks, but also in ‘non-cavernous’ shales, granites, schist, gneiss, sandstones, etc. My first reaction on reading the paper announcing this discovery was to attack the bottom end of my garden with a pick and shovel. There, to my delight and amazement, I found tiny-eyed cave spiders (Porrhomma egeria) frolicking among the fractured chunks of Pennant Sandstone just one metre beneath the wreckage of the flower bed. As far as I know there has been no systematic investigation to date of the fauna of ‘SUC’ habitats in Britain and Ireland – an extraordinary gap in our knowledge which surely must be remedied before long.

      A better-known mesocavernous habitat is contained in talus, or scree, whose surface can frequently become covered with vegetation and soil, turning it into a fair imitation of Juberthie and Delay’s SUC. When not sealed by soil, the upper levels of talus are unsuitable as a habitat for cavernicoles, being too cold in winter, too hot in summer and too dry for much of the time. However, if the scree is deep enough, the lower levels must surely provide exactly the conditions favoured by cavernicoles, though I know of no work on this deep-talus habitat in Britain.

      I know of only two accessible ‘DUC’ mesocavernous habitats within caves. One is in the spaces within rock piles (underground talus), the other is in speleothem pockets. Rock piles may, or may not provide a suitable habitat for mesocavernicoles. If the pile is in an old, dry ‘fossil’ passage, as most rock piles tend to be, it is unlikely to contain enough food to support life (unless the cave contains bats, or other vertebrates, in which case the rocks may be over-run by guano-beasts). On the other hand, if the pile is sufficiently extensive, and is traversed by percolation water carrying organic material, it is likely to harbour a rich fauna of mesocavernicoles – although the depth within it at which a searching biologist can expect to ‘strike bugs’ will increase with the increasing dryness or breeziness of the surrounding cave atmosphere, precisely as would be the case with above-ground talus. Juberthie (1983) gives an interesting example of a schist-boulder pile in the great Salle de la Verna chamber in France’s Pierre Saint Martin cave. It is inhabited by a typical SUC fauna of Aphaenops beetles which appear to be quite oblivious of the fact that their schist scree habitat lies the best part of 1000 m underground.

      Speleothem pockets are essentially just spaces of mesocavernous dimensions like all the others described in this section, but where they occur in the ‘deep cave’ or ‘stagnant air’ zone of caves (see the microclimate section, later in this chapter), they will often prove to be the very best places to look for mesocavernicoles. Speleothems occur where percolation water, rich in dissolved lime, intersects a cave passage. Where such deposits are laid down over mud, pockets often form between the two; and if deposition is still in progress, trickling water maintains just the microclimate conditions favoured by cavernicoles, while also supplying a source of food. In short, they perfectly reflect conditions in the mesocaverns. The late A. Vandel, in his famous book Biospeologie la biologie des animaux cavernicoles (published in 1964), described such a habitat in the Grotte de Sainte-Catherine, at Balaguères, in the Ariège region of France:

      “One side of the chamber is formed by a stalagmitic wall which is covered by a thin layer of water which flows from an opening in the roof … The constant flow brings in organic material from the exterior which nourishes the Collembola and nematoceran Diptera on which Aphaenops (a blind cave beetle) feeds … The stalagmitic covering is separated from the wall by a space of a few millimetres which contains the products of dissolution of the rock: clotted red and black clay, and black magnesium deposits.

      When one enters this chamber three or four Aphaenops can usually be seen running on the wall in search of food … If they are caught, others appear. Closer examination soon explains this phenomenon. The calcareous wall is formed of stalagmitic columns arranged parallel to each other. Between these columns small holes have been hollowed and it is into these that Aphaenops disappears … It appears that the space between the rock and the stalagmitic wall constitutes the biotope in which Aphaenops lives when not in search of food, and in which they reproduce.”

       Cave pools

      Gours, or rimstone pools are formed by seep-fed, lime-rich waters trickling down an incline in an open cave and depositing a sequence of curved, retaining dams. Such pools presumably provide conditions akin to those in phreatic mesocaverns, and often harbour a similar fauna, which is augmented in the cave by animals washed out from seepage cracks during heavy rain. Other drip-fed pools may also contain aquatic mesocavernicoles, providing they receive a food supply.

      The concave meniscus of pool surfaces may act as a deadly trap for soil and mesocavernous springtails (see Chapter 5), providing a happy hunting-ground for other specialized mites and springtails, whose feet are equipped to grip.

       Cave sediments

      All kinds of sediments find their way into caves. Many arrive complete with their own specialist biotas: bacteria, fungi, nematodes, earthworms and so on, and these may be exploited by cavernicoles as a source of food. Cave sediments may also serve as a habitat for the eggs, larvae, or pupae of cavernicoles.

       Moonmilk

      Moonmilk is a term applied to white, wet, cheese-like or dry, sticky, powdery formless masses found in limestone caves. This weird stuff may contain a cocktail of carbonate minerals – including calcite, aragonite, monohydrocalcite, magnesite, hydromagnesite, nesquehonite and huntite – some of which are alledged to be associated with particular bacteria isolated from moonmilk. A blue-green alga Synechococcus elongatus found growing in moonmilk in complete darkness must have been using alternative metabolic pathways to the normal photosynthetic ones it employs in the light, and other algae (Gleocapsa magna) may also be present. I know of no cavernicolous animals associated with moonmilk, so this is not a habitat which I propose to discuss further in this book.

       Submarine and intertidal cave habitats

      The submarine Green Holes and intertidal Brown Holes of Doolin, in County Clare, are ordinary limestone caves, formed in the usual way, which became inundated by rising sea levels at the end of the last glacial period – about 12,000 BP No doubt they have had a long history of intermittent sub-aerial cave-development during cold glacial periods of low sea-stance, alternating with periods of immersion in sea-water during interglacial warm spells, such as the planet currently enjoys. They provide a significant habitat for marine life – Mermaid’s Hole has been explored for over a kilometre and the Hell complex totals several hundred metres. Other significant submarine caves occur in the Brixham area of Devon and at Durness in the far north of Scotland. Otter Hole, a resurgence cave which opens on to the banks of the river Wye near Chepstow, has a tidally-flushed entrance series which may contain fresh or saline water, depending on the height of the tide and the volume of the cave river. The faunas of such caves will be discussed in Chapter 5. In other countries, an interesting fauna has been found in coastal brackish groundwaters, but I know of no such British fauna. It may exist, but no studies have been made.

      Submarine caves, such as the Green Holes, should not be confused with ‘sea caves’, such as the famous Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides, which are spray-filled holes blasted out of cliffs by wave action. The latter may harbour a few ubiquitous, fast-moving cliff-dwellers such as sea slaters (Ligia oceanica) and silverfish (Petrobius maritimus), which can dive into cracks to escape the force of the waves, as well as a few of the more hardy marine organisms found in the more extensive drowned limestone caves referred to previously. In short, the fauna of sea caves is unremarkable.

       Slutch caves

      Slutch is the onomatopoeic term given by Wainwright to the peat bogs of Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Black Hill in Derbyshire. Apparently, water flowing

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