Differences in aquatic microcrustacean assemblages between temporary and perennial springs of an alpine karstic aquifer

*[email protected] endemic, occurring only in the particular locality or region (Culver and Sket, 2000; Gibert and Deharveng, 2002). Intensive studies of hypogean aquatic fauna over the central and southern Europe demonstrated that one of the richest regions in the number of stygobionts (i.e. strictly hypogean species) is the karstified peri-Mediterranean region and a wider Dinaric region (SE Europe) (Sket, 1999; Dole-Olivier et al., 2009b). Less information exists regarding hypogean aquatic fauna from the Alpine areas in Europe (Stoch, 2000; Sambugar et al., 2008; Cristian and Spötl, 2010; Papi and Pipan, 2011). A study from the northern Italian Alps, where high altitude caves were sampled, demonstrated that stygobionts are not as rare as expected for this region (Sambugar et al., 2008). Possible reasons for that could be either re-colonization following the retreat of Würmian glaciers, or their survival in the deep aquifer during the Quaternary glaciations (Sambugar et al., 2008). Karstic aquifers are geomorphologicaly and hydrologicaly highly heterogeneous and difficult to INTRODUCTION