Cave and Karst Biota Modeling in the Appalachian LCC - Observed springtails in 20km grid cells

We developed spatial summary (GIS) layers for a study of factors influencing the distribution of cave and karst associated fauna within the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative region, one of 22 public-private partnerships established by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to aid in developing landscape scale solutions to conservation problems (https://lccnetwork.org/lcc/appalachian). We gathered occurrence data on cave-limited terrestrial and aquatic troglobiotic species from a variety of sources within the Appalachian LCC region covering portions of 15 states. Occurrence records were developed from the scientific literature, existing biodiversity databases, personal records of the authors, museum accessions, state Natural Heritage programs, and The Nature Conservancy (for Tennessee). Occurrence records were identified by location and translated into a GIS database. Although the precise locations cannot be made public due the sensitivity of the information, data sharing agreements, and restrictions under the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of 1988, we summarized the data spatially using a coarse 20x20km vector grid. We used these occurence records, summarized at the 20x20km grid resolution in statistical modeling to examine physical factors predictive of cave dwelling fauna. Spatial summaries were developed for all cave dwelling species in our database where we had location coordinates for nine faunal groups (five terrestrial and four aquatic) that are common components of terrestrial and aquatic cave communities: ground beetles (Carabidae), millipedes, pseudoscorpions, spiders, and springtails for terrestrial species groups, and amphipods (Crangonyctidae and Gammaridae), isopods (Asellidae), crayfishes (Cambaridae), and fishes (Amblyopsidae) for aquatic species groups.

本研究针对阿巴拉契亚景观保护合作区（Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative, LCC）内影响洞穴与喀斯特关联动物分布的驱动因子展开，我们在此区域构建了空间汇总地理信息系统（Geographic Information System, GIS）图层。阿巴拉契亚景观保护合作区是美国鱼类及野生动物管理局（United States Fish and Wildlife Service）设立的22个公私合作项目之一，旨在助力制定景观尺度的保护问题解决方案（https://lccnetwork.org/lcc/appalachian）。我们从多类数据源收集了覆盖15个州部分区域的阿巴拉契亚LCC区域内的洞穴限制性陆生与水生专洞栖物种的出现记录，数据来源包括科学文献、现有生物多样性数据库、作者个人记录、博物馆馆藏标本、各州自然遗产项目以及大自然保护协会（田纳西州）。所有物种出现记录均通过地理位置信息进行标注，并导入GIS数据库。鉴于该数据涉及敏感信息、受数据共享协议约束，且受1988年《联邦洞穴资源保护法》相关条款限制，我们无法公开精确坐标点位，因此采用20×20千米的粗分辨率矢量网格对数据进行空间汇总。我们以该20×20千米网格分辨率下汇总的物种出现记录为基础开展统计建模，以探究可预测洞穴栖息动物分布的物理环境因子。本数据集针对数据库中具备空间坐标信息的所有洞穴栖息物种完成了空间汇总，所涵盖的9个动物类群均为陆生与水生洞穴群落的常见组成类群：其中陆生类群共5组，包括步甲科（Carabidae）甲虫、马陆、伪蝎、蜘蛛及弹尾虫；水生类群共4组，包括捷虾科（Crangonyctidae）与钩虾科（Gammaridae）端足类、栉水虱科（Asellidae）等足类、螯虾科（Cambaridae）螯虾以及洞鲈科（Amblyopsidae）鱼类。