CAVE CITY, Ky. - Kurt Helf crawled through Mammoth Cave National Park, holding a humidity-measuring device in one hand and a camera in the other. For the past five years, Helf, an ecologist with the National Park Service, has led an effort with the Cumberland Piedmont Network to monitor more than 100 species of crickets living inside Mammoth Cave. Cave crickets are also an essential element of subsurface ecosystems. Declines in cave cricket populations can be an early warning of issues with cave ecosystem health. They’re considered a “keystone” species, Helf said, because other organisms depend on the food they bring into the cave.

Source: thestar June 09, 2019 17:48 UTC