The groundwater invertebrate fauna of the Channel Islands

Abstract

The Channel Islands are a small archipelago of British dependencies just off the coast of Normandy at the western end of the English Channel. There were only three records for stygobitic Crustacea [Niphargus fontanus Bate, 1859 and N. kochianus Bate, 1859 from Jersey and N. aquilex Schiődte, 1855 from Guernsey] from the archipelago and no systematic survey has been carried out of the islands for their groundwater fauna till present. Recently sampling was carried out in wells, boreholes and springs on the four largest islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark during February 2012. Niphargus aquilex was widespread across all four islands and did not appear to be restricted to any particular geology. Niphargus ladmiraulti was present in large numbers in a single borehole on Jersey, the first record of this species from the archipelago. Niphargus kochianus was collected from two sites on Alderney and the syncarid Antrobathynella stammeri (Jakobi, 1954) from two sites on the west coast of Jersey. The records for A. stammeri are new for the Channel Islands and possibly represent the first records of this species from the French bio-geographical area. The presence of N. fontanus on the islands was not confirmed. Several species of stygophilic Cyclopoida were also recorded during the survey along with epigean freshwater invertebrate taxa, which were mostly present in springs and shallow wells close to surface streams.