Macroinvertebrate biodiversity patterns during primary succession in manmade ponds in north-eastern Spain

The main aim of this work was to evaluate the primary succession of manmade ponds by studying the temporal patterns of the pond biodiversity metrics. We surveyed the macroinvertebrate community, the water and the sediment of 19 manmade ponds of different ages (from 1 to 22 years) located at reclaimed opencast coal mines in northeastern Spain. This study showed an increase of biodiversity with pond age: the oldest ponds showed higher complexity and more rare taxa than the youngest ponds, while the taxonomic richness did not change. These results highlighted the need for using a wide range of biodiversity metrics. Moreover, our results suggest that post-mining landscapes could be limiting environments for the evolving macroinvertebrate community because pond age explained less of the biodiversity variance than the environmental characteristics. The changes found in water and sediment during this time were not reflected in changes in biodiversity, and the levels of biodiversity in our study area were lower than those of restored or manmade ponds of similar ages.