Áine O Connor

Government of Ireland · Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage

The year 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the Burren Green Calamia tridens in Ireland and we provide a complete checklist of the Lepidoptera of the Burren region of western Ireland, the first such list since 1967. The checklist is compiled from published sources and verified records. In total 1,002 species are listed as present i...

Turloughs are temporary ponds lying on karstic limestone in western Ireland. They fill and empty with groundwater associated with underground drainage systems, governed by local climatic events. Their biota shows adaptations such as short life span, parthenogenesis and resting stages, but as predation is mild they are also refugia for some arctic o...

The Birds and Habitats Directives are not pieces of water legislation but are integrally, legally linked to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). WFD plans must include measures to support the water-related objectives for some 44 water-dependent natural habitats and 22 species protected in Special Areas of Conservation, as well as water-dependent Sp...

IntroductionGroundwater Dependent Terrestrial Ecosystems in IrelandA Conceptual Framework for Assessing the Environmental Supporting Conditions of Groundwater Dependent Terrestrial EcosystemsApplication of the Conceptual Framework to Case StudiesDiscussion and Conclusions AcknowledgementsReferences

Based on ca 37,000 records for Ireland, 244 taxa of beetle are evaluated for their conservation status using the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) regional criteria. Of the wetland species, eight are considered to be regionally extinct, eight critically endangered, eleven endangered, twenty two vulnerable, twenty four near t...

Turloughs are karst wetland ecosystems that are virtually unique to Ireland. Flooding annually in autumn through springs and fissures in the underlying limestone and draining in the springtime, often through the same fissures or swallow-holes, they have been described as ‘temporal ecotones’. Over 300 have been documented. They are priority habitats...

This paper examined groundwater and wetlands in the Shannon river basin in the context of implementation of the European water framework directive (WFD). The particular wetland example of turloughs (groundwater fed temporary lakes in karst areas) was examined in the context of defining river basin district boundaries and in the delineation of their...

Turloughs are temporary ponds lying on karstic limestone in western Ireland. They fill and empty with groundwater associated with underground drainage systems, governed by local climatic events. Their biota shows adaptations such as short life span, parthenogenesis and resting stages, but as predation is mild they are also refugia for some arctic o...

Two methods were used to sample aquatic macroinvertebrates in three turloughs. Turloughs are systems that flood periodically from groundwater, in response to local rainfall patterns and contain rare aquatic species and assemblages. The first method used a standard pond net that was swept through the water column, while the second involved. xing a r...

Two methods were used to sample aquatic macroinvertebrates in three turloughs. Turloughs are systems that flood periodically from groundwater, in response to local rainfall patterns and contain rare aquatic species and assemblages. The first method used a standard pond net that was swept through the water column, while the second involved fixing a...