Oscillations of temperatures in Piedmont caves remarkable for speleofauna.

We measured the temperature variations in Piedmont, in some interesting caves from a biological point of view. The data analysis showed that thermic conditions are constant for each cave, but vary from one cave to another. This has allowed to subdivide the Piedmontese cave environments into four groups. The first includes the larger caves. The temperature is stable at daily scale (<0.05 °C) as at annual scale (>0.6 °C). The second includes medium-size cave environments, well insulated from the external environment: the annual and daily thermic excursions are very limited. The third includes both small caves and the entrance of big caves. The daily temperature range is from 0.2 to 1° C, the annual thermic excursions exceed 5° C. The fourth group includes small high-altitude caves, in which there is ice in January. Because of this, the daily temperature range is smaller than those of the third group (0.05-0.35° C).