Temporary freshwater rockpools as sentinel systems for climate change

Abstract

Temporary freshwater rockpools are seasonal bodies of rainwater that accumulate in small solution hollows in karstified limestone landscapes. These pools support a relatively simple community of specialised aquatic flowering plants and macroalgae during the wet season, and may be colonised by opportunistic terrestrial plants during the dry season. The wet-season species may be categorised into hydrophytes, amphiphytes and terriphytes, according to their predominant ecological strategy. The small size of these pools and short life-cycles of the resident species suggest that these habitats would exhibit population and community-level responses to climatic change that would be relatively rapid compared to those observed in larger wetlands.