Microarthropod communities of industrially disturbed or imported soils in the High Arctic; the abandoned coal mining town of Pyramiden, Svalbard Stephen J. CoulsonArne FjellbergElena N. Melekhina • Anastasia A. TaskaevaNatalia V. LebedevaOlga A. Belkina • Stanisøaw SeniczakAnna SeniczakDariusz J. Gwiazdowicz

The terrestrial environment of the High Arctic consists of a mosaic of habitat types, both natural and anthropogenic. At the abandoned coal mining town of Pyramiden, Svalbard, topsoil was imported from southern European Russia. This, and further industrial disturbance in the town, offers new opportunities for the native invertebrate fauna, but may also introduce alien, potentially invasive, species. Few studies have examined anthro- pogenic habitats in the High Arctic. But increasing activity, including industry and tourism, requires an understanding of the responses of the Arctic to such pressures. The mi- croarthropod communities observed in the settlement were substantially different from the natural tundra. In the settlement, nine species of mesostigmatid mite occurred (three new records for Svalbard; Dendrolaelaps foveolatus) and two additional not identified to spe- cies (Halolaelaps sp., Arctoseius sp.), 26 species of Collembola (12 not seen in the natural tundra close to Pyramiden) and two new records (Thalassaphorura debilis and Desoria