Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Cave-Dwelling Arthropods

Cave-dwelling arthropods represent a remarkable component of subterranean ecosystems, exhibiting high levels of endemism and extraordinary morphological specialisations. These organisms often display troglomorphic traits such as depigmentation, eye reduction or loss, and elongation of appendages, reflecting adaptations to perpetual darkness, stable microclimates and limited food resources. Taxonomic efforts over recent decades have unveiled thousands of species across major arthropod groups—spiders, beetles, crickets and mites—each lineage evolving independently within karst systems, lava tubes and other subterranean habitats. Molecular approaches, including DNA barcoding and multilocus phylogenetic analysis, have begun to resolve cryptic diversity and elucidate evolutionary relationships among cave lineages, while detailed morphological studies continue to refine generic and species-level classifications. This body of work underscores the global significance of subterranean biodiversity for understanding evolutionary processes, biogeography and ecosystem function. It also highlights the pressing need for targeted conservation measures, as many cave specialists face threats from habitat disturbance, pollution and climate change, emphasising the dual importance of taxonomy both as a foundation for biodiversity inventories and as a tool for environmental management.

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Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Cave-Dwelling Arthropods publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in biodiversity and taxonomy of cave-dwelling arthropods across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Troglobiont: An organism obligatorily adapted to live in a cave environment.

Chaetotaxy: The arrangement and pattern of bristles or setae on an arthropod’s body, used in species identification.

DNA barcoding: A method of species identification using a short genetic marker in an organism’s DNA.

Phylogenetic analysis: The study of evolutionary relationships among organisms using morphological or molecular data.

References

1. A checklist of spiders of Nepal (Arachnida; Araneae). Heliyon (2022).
2. Contributions to the knowledge of subterranean trechine beetles in southern China’s karsts: five new genera (Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Trechinae). ZooKeys (2016).
3. Description of four new species of the subgenus Tachycines (Gymnaeta) Adelung, 1902 (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) from caves in China and additional notes on some previously known species. European Journal of Taxonomy (2021).