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COBISS: 1.01 Contributions to SpeleobiologY Appearing IN Acta Carsologica SpeleobiološKI prispevki V Acta Carsologica Tanja Pipan1 & David C. Culver2 Abstract UDC 551.44:57:050(497.4) Izvleček UDK 551.44:57:050(497.4) Tanja Pipan & David C. Culver: Contributions to Speleobi- Tanja Pipan & David C. Culver: Speleobiološki prispevki v ology Appearing in Acta Carsologica Acta Carsologica Although primarily known as a journal of karst geosciences čeprav je Acta Carsologica v prvi vrsti zbornik s področja and hydrology, Acta Carsologica has played a vital role in the kraške geoznanosti in hidrologije, ima ključno vlogo tudi pri development of speleobiology. A total of 65 biological papers razvoju speleobiologije. V obdobju od 1955 do 2014 je bilo v zborniku skupno objavljenih 65 prispevkov s področja (speleo) on speleobiology were published in the journal from 1955 to biologije. številni prispevki, zlasti v prvih letih zbornika, so te- 2014. Many of the papers, especially in the early years of the meljili na opisu novih vrst in njihovi razširjenosti, objavljeni journal, added to the knowledge base of species distribution pa so bili tudi pomembni konceptualni in analitični prispevki. and description, but important conceptual and synthetic pa- Dve posebni izdaji sta bili posvečeni meddisciplinarnim vsebi- pers have also appeared. Two special issues were devoted to in- nam z osrednjo biološko komponento – čas v krasu ter ogljik terdisciplinary topics with a major biological component-time in meje v krasu. in karst, and carbon and boundaries in karst. Ključne besede: biospeleologija, jamska biologija, Egon Pre- Key words: biospeleology, cave biology, Egon Pretner, speleo- tner, speleobiologija. biology. Introduction There are many processes and features either unique to, Speleobiologists have long faced the dilemma of ei- or especially pronounced in caves and karst. On the bio- ther publishing in specialized karst journals such as Acta logical side, these features include the presence of the eye- Carsologica, or publishing in more broadly oriented sci- less, depigmented denizens of subterranean habitats and entific journals, such as Evolution. For many years, this the presence of carbon-limited ecosystems without any choice was made easy because of the refusal of main- photosynthetic production of organic molecules (Culver stream journals to publish karst studies. That time has & Pipan 2009). The evolutionary loss of characters, es- passed, and speleobiologists do face a choice. In this con- pecially eyes and pigment, of subterranean organisms, is tribution, we argue that journals like Acta Carsologica interesting in its own right but also informative to the continue to be of fundamental importance in the growth larger disciplines of ecology and evolutionary biology. and development of the field of speleobiology. 1 Karst Research Institute at ZRC-SAZU, Titov trg 2, Postojna, Slovenia, SI-6230, e-mail: [email protected] 2 [email protected] Received/Prejeto: 02.03.2016 ACTA CARSOLOGICA 45/1, 123–129, POSTOJNA 2016 Tanja Pipan & David C. Culver Acta Carsologica plays two vital roles in karst sci- drology, its core disciplines, but in speleobiology as well. ence disciplines in general and speleobiology in par- According to its mission statement, ticular. The first is that of a dependable outlet for karst Acta Carsologica publishes original research papers research and especially for description and summaries and reviews, letters, essays and reports covering topics of information on taxonomy, biogeography, and basic related to specific of karst areas. These comprise, but are biology of subterranean species. Obvious examples in- not limited to karst geology, hydrology and geomorphol- clude species lists, species descriptions, and species dis- ogy, speleology, hydrogeology, biospeleology and history tributions, studies that form the necessary basis for more of karst science. synthetic and speculative studies. The second is that it is We discuss below the role the journal has played in a dependable outlet for those studies that build the dis- the development of the disciplines of biospeleology, with ciplinary principles of speleobiology itself, and even the its emphasis on the broader discipline of speleology and broader disciplines, such as biogeography. Examples in- speleobiology, with its emphasis on the broader disci- clude the restriction of dispersal due to geological barri- pline of biology. In its earlier years, Acta Carsologica em- ers. There is nothing especially unique about this duality phasized the Classical Karst, the area in SW Slovenia be- of the specific and the general. Most subdisciplines of tween Ljubljana and Trieste (Gabrovšek & Ravbar 2015), biology and geology have specialized journals. What is but there is scarcely any biological phenomenon occur- unique about Acta Carsologica is that it has served this ring in caves that does not occur in the Classical Karst. role, not only in the disciplines of karst geology and hy- A Brief HistorY of Subterranean BiologY Barr (1966), writing about the history of subterranean physiology of that most iconic of cave animals, Proteus biology in the United States identifies a time when most anguinus. Jovan Hadži, a prominent Slovenian biologist papers published in subterranean biology in the U.S. were and speleobiologist, was the founding editor of the jour- taxonomic or distributional. This period was earlier in nal (Gabrovšek & Ravbar 2015). The paper by Briegleb the U.S. than in Europe, and ended in 1955, according to and Schatz (1974) is especially noteworthy both because Barr. In fact, taxonomic description and faunal distribu- it puts forward the idea that caves are an extreme envi- tion remains to this day the most common topic in sub- ronment, but also that Proteus can be a model organism terranean biology. For example, the majority of papers for the study of some aspects of animal physiology. in Subterranean Biology, the journal of the International Between 1975 and 1994, little biological research Society of Subterranean Biology, are taxonomic. was published in Acta Carsologica, although this pe- Many of the trends in the study of subterranean bi- riod was one of intense research activity in speleobiol- ology are represented by papers published in Acta Carso- ogy. There were several notable papers that did appear in logica. Ever since its beginning in 1955, important pub- Acta Carsologica during this period—notably continu- lications in subterranean biology have appeared (Tab. 1), ing studies by Tone Novak on the microdistribution and including a series of taxonomic and distribution papers ecology of terrestrial cave animals (Novak et al. 1980) by the famed Slovenian biologist Egon Pretner. A total of and by Boris Bulog on the biology of Proteus anguinus 70 papers on speleobiology have appeared between 1955 (Bulog 1994). The reasons for this hiatus in biological and 2015 (Appendix 1). A number of biological papers publications in Acta Carsologica are complex but include on surface biota of karst (e.g., turloughs and disappear- the internationalization of studies in cave biology result- ing [intermittent] lakes) have also appeared in Acta Car- ing in a larger number of outlets available for publica- sologica, but will not be considered further. Speleobio- tion. logical papers published in Acta Carsologica from 1955 By the mid-1990’s there was a burst of publications to 1974 are mostly taxonomic and distributional. Pret- that continues to the present (Tab. 1). ner alone published nine papers on the distribution and In contrast to the earlier period of biological publi- taxonomy of cave beetles. In addition to the taxonomic cations, the range of topics published after 1994 in Acta and distributional studies, there were papers published, Carsologica is broad. Besides papers on the basic biology, beginning in the mid-1970’s, that were more synthet- ecology, and physiology of cave animals, topics that ap- ic and process oriented. Of special note are the papers pear in the earlier period as well, there are new areas of published by Hadži, Briegleb, Schatz, and Istenič on the research represented: 124 ACTA CARSOLOGICA 45/2 – 2016 Contributions to SpeleobiologY Appearing IN Acta Carsologica Tab. 1: Classification of articles on speleobiology in Acta Carsologica according to topic. A complete list of papers is given in Appendix 1. Category 1955−1964 1965−1974 1975−1984 1985−1994 1995−2004 2005−2014 TOTAL Taxonomy, species distributions 8 4 1 2 4 20 Basic biology, ecology, physiology 1 5 1 1 1 4 13 Conservation 1 1 2 Evolutionary ecology 4 2 6 Microbiology 2 3 5 Biogeography & Evolution 1 7 8 Ecosystems 7 7 Syntheses & reviews 1 2 2 4 Total 9 10 2 1 13 30 65 • Evolutionary ecology and the importance of different carbon pathways (e.g., • Microbiology epikarst), was the focus of two of these papers (Hutchins • Biogeography and evolution et al. 2013; Simon 2013). Novak et al. (2013) pointed out • Ecosystems a little studied pathway (carbon from non-specialized • Conservation terrestrial invertebrates) may be important, and Pipan • Syntheses and reviews and Culver (2013) demonstrated that bursts of organic carbon were likely important in shallow subterranean Especially noteworthy and influential in speleobi- habitats. ology have been the publications from two special sym- Largely neglected until the last two decades, the im- posia, organized in conjunction with the Karst Waters portance of microbes in carbon processing and even in Institute (USA). Both symposia were broadly interdisci- geochemical processes has begun to be recognized. Pa- plinary and drew scientists from a number of countries. pers on microbiology in Acta Carsologica have provided The first of these was a 2007 symposium on “time in an important basis of understanding the ubiquity of mi- karst.” Participants addressed the problem of how long crobes in the karst environment, and the high taxonomic both physical and biological processes in karst take, a and metabolic diversity of forms (e.g., Mulec et al. 2012; topic of interest not only to evolutionary ecologists but Hillebrand-Voiculescu et al. 2014). to geologists and physical geographers as well.