Icelandic Collembola. Revised checklist and general comments.

• The last survey of Icelandic Collembola is that of Olafsson (1991) reporting 77 species and 26 taxa of infraspecific level (forms, varieties and aberrations of which some are good species, others not). The Study of Icelandic soil fauna has intensified over the last decades, mainly in the fields of applied sciences (agriculture, forestry). However, few works report Collembola down to species level (Sigurdardottir 1991, Davidsson 1996, Gudleifsson & Bjarnadottir-2002). The present author visited Iceland five times during 2003-2005 and collected a large number of soil samples resulting in a considerable increase in the number of known species, now amounting to 149. The highest number of species (81) were found in seashore habitats, which also had the highest proportion of habitat specialists (30%). Young and degraded habitats (lava fields, grassland) had considerably lower species numbers and were more dominated by generalists. Old stands of coniferous forest (planted) were impoverished compared to mature indigenous birch forest.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Botanik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Botany (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)