An updated viewpoint on the earthworm communities with the Dendrobaena alpina species group (Oligochaeta, Lumbricidae) from the South-Eastern Carpathians

Dendrobaena alpina (Rosa, 1884) has been considered by V.V. Pop [Relationships between lumbricid synusia and ecosystem types in the Apuseni Mountains (the Romanian Carpathians), in: Present and Perspective in Biology. Structure and Functions in Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems. Tipo Agronomia, Cluj-Napoca, 1984, pp. 79–86 (Romanian, English summary); Density and biomass of earthworm synusia in forest ecosystems of the Romanian Carpathians, in: A.N. Bonvicini Pagliai, P. Omodeo, (Eds.), On Earthworms, Selected Symposia and Monographs, U.Z.I., vol. 2, Muchi, Modena, 1987, pp. 183–190; Structure and season dynamics of earthworm communities, in: I. Popovici (Ed.), Parcul Naţional Retezat. Studii ecologice, Ed. West Side Computers, Braşov, 1993, pp. 215–227 (Romanian, English summary); Earthworm–vegetation–soil relationships in the Romanian Carpathians, Soil Biol. Biochem. 29 (1997) 223–229] to be the most characteristic lumbricid species of the coniferous belts in the South-Eastern Carpathians, giving its name to the so called “Earthworm community with D. alpina”. Recent morphological and molecular taxonomy researches [Cs. Csuzdi, A.A. Pop, V.V. Pop, M. Wink, A. Zicsi, Revision of the Dendrobaena alpina (Rosa, 1884) species group (Oligochaeta, Lumbricidae), in: V.V. Pop, A.A. Pop (Eds.), Advances in Earthworm Taxonomy II, Cluj University Press, Cluj-Napoca, 2005, pp. 119–128] proved that the earthworm populations formerly attributed to D. alpina should be split into four taxa, namely: D. alpina alpina (Rosa, 1884), Dendrobaena alpina alteclitellata (Pop, 1938), Dendrobaena attemsi (Michaelsen, 1902), and Dendrobaena n. sp. Consequently, the structural patterns of the Carpathians earthworm communities are reconsidered, and new earthworm community types are described in this paper.