After the publication of Essai sur les problemes biospeologiques in 1907, the first important work dedicated to biospeleology in the world, and the initiation of an international research program “Biospeologica” created to study cave fauna, systematic researches in Romania advanced on both terrestrial and aquatic groups using both traditional taxonomy and new methods.

Our investigations on cave fauna are focused on:

  • Systematics and taxonomy of crustaceans (copepods, amphipods)
  • Biodiversity, dynamics, adaptations and evolutions of subterranean species to subterranean realm
  • Cave fauna monitoring and conservation
  • Palaeocology using fossil ostracods from cave sediments to reconstruct the paleoenvironment at the regional scale

Developing and testing approaches to monitor subterranean biodiversity in karst (Sub-BioMon)

Subterranean karst ecosystems have high species diversity with specialized physiological and morphological adaptations. Due to the environment’s complexity and heterogeneity, along with species identification challenges (including the lack of taxonomists), estimating biodiversity and monitoring of species remain difficult. Within Sub-BioMon (2024-2027) an ERANET project (no. 26/2024) of the Biodiversa+ call we aim to provide a standardized method and protocol for monitoring subterranean biodiversity. We monitor the biodiversity of cave fauna with focus on groundwater crustaceans, spiders, and beetles using standardized methods and novel techniques for species identifications such is eDNA. Lead by the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) the project unify cave biologists from six European countries: Slovenia, Italy, Romania, Luxembourg, Hungary and Belgium. 

Chasing ice caves fauna

Ice caves present a particularly challenging environment for the existence of life forms, where the temperature is constantly bellow 0°. They present a mosaic of microhabitats commonly found in caves, i.e., fissures, cracks, microfissures, pools (temporary or permanent), and subterranean rivers and lakes but also have periglacial sectors, with various ice formations (ice walls, ice stalagmites, and floor ice) suitable for the life of particular fauna. Usually they are glacial relicts and poses specific physiology to cope with low temperature. An ongoing collaborative project together with the Institute of Speleology Emil Racovita (Cluj Branch), Apuseni Natural Park, Pavol and Jozef Šafárik University (Košice, Slovakia) is focused on biotic communities and glacial relicts from ice caves.

The key focus areas include the assessment of rare, specialized, and endemic species and physiological adaptations to survive at low temperatures. Combining the speleological, microclimate and biospeleological studies and the regional management of the Apuseni Natural Park, we aim to develop a network of ice caves monitoring program that include iconic sites of Romania.

Cave fauna of Romania

Romania has one of the richest and most unique subterranean faunas in southeastern Europe. Cave ecosystems feature hundreds of specialized cave-adapted species, troglobionts referred to terrestrial species and stygobionts to aquatic ones. Karst rocks in Romania cover at least 5500 km2 representing cca. 2.3% of the total area of the country (238,397 km2). Romania have catalogued more than 12.000 of caves (www.speologie.org) distributed within 5 main karst areas: Apuseni (in northwest Romania), Banat (in southwest), Mehedinti (southern Romanian Carptahians) and Dobrogea (in southeast, close to the Black Sea). Scattered karst is also present in the Eastern Carpathians and across the entire Carpathian chain. Several strict subterranean dwellers are registered across caves hosting roughly more than 300 troglobites and stygobite species.

CaveFauna_RO is an integrative database on distribution of troglobite and stygobite species in subterranean habitats across Romanian caves.  The data base will include: spatially defined localities, species list and distribution across Romanian caves of coleopteran (cca. 160 troglobites), spiders and aquatic crustaceans (cca. 130 stygobitic copepods, amphipods, ostracods, syncarids and isopods); a collection of DNA sequences for each species tracked via established voucher coding systems (GeneBank, Bold). The database of currently more than 800 records are gathered from published literature, reports (grey literature), as well as field surveys conducted in Romania by several researchers across various projects after 2000. Database will be available for registered users via an online interface (in work).

CaveFauna_RO database will provide a valuable tool for achieving a deeper understanding of subterranean biodiversity and of cave fauna protection and conservation in Romania. The database is developed partially within the SubBioMon and Stygofauna Mundi projects.

Short status of the current database:

  • Geographical coverage: Romania
  • Number of records: 837
  • Number of taxa: 321
  • Number of DNA sequences: 34.