Insect wings appear to have evolved from gills used by aquatic forms for ventilation and swimming, yet the nature of intermediate stages remains a mystery. Here a form of nonflying aerodynamic locomotion used by aquatic insects is described, called surface skimming, in which thrust is provided by wing flapping while continuous contact with the water removes the need for total aerodynamic weight...

Diapause is the primary factor synchronizing insect life cycles with seasonal changes in the environment. Diapause is the major factor regulating the timing of growth, development, and reproduction, both before and after the period of dormancy. Many definitions of diapause may be found in the literature. Tauber et al. (1986) define diapause as “a neurohormonally mediated, dynamic state of low m...

Needham (1928) first noted the ‘drift’ of aquatic insects when examining the importance of terrestrial insects as trout food. When using a fine copper wire-meshed net to collect benthos in streams near Ithaca, NY he discovered large numbers of aquatic insects present his samples. Drift attracted more attention from researchers in the 1950’s after Muller quantified drift and compared drift with ...

In total 20 species of aquatic insects have been recorded from a weed infested pond. Odonata was numerically the most abundant group constituting of 54% of the total aquatic insects even though these belonged to three species. Coleoptera though constituted only 22% of aquatic insects had 10 species. Urothemis signata and Ranatra filliformes were eudominant and dominant species respectively. Hyd...

Diversity patterns of aquatic insects among sampling sites lying with!ç the unprotected and protected areas of Western Ghats were studied. This study primarily emphasizes whether anthropogenic influence is the prime cause for the presence of aquatic insects especially of pollution-sensitive organisms belonging to the orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera, or to factors such as the ph...

Methyl mercury (MeHg) is one of the most hazardous contaminants in the environment, adversely affecting the health of wildlife and humans. Recent studies have demonstrated that aquatic insects biotransport MeHg and other contaminants to terrestrial consumers, but the factors that regulate the flux of MeHg out of aquatic ecosystems via emergent insects have not been studied. The authors used exp...

aquatic invertebrates are the major group of freshwater animals in aquatic ecosystems in terms of biology and food chain. this study was conducted to identify benthic communities in four stations of the abgarmeh river (saleh abad, the ilam province) during 2007-2008. in this study eighteen families of benthose such as naididae, tubificidae, lumbricidae, erpobdellidae, gammaridae, haliplidae, co...

The flux of emerging aquatic insects from streams can provide a significant energy subsidy to riparian web-building spiders. However, despite the high temporality of aquatic insect emergence, the effects of such aquatic insect dynamics on spider distribution are poorly understood. To examine the relationship, the aquatic insect flux from a headwater stream in a northern Japanese deciduous fores...

—We sampled fishes and aquatic insects monthly ( Jun.–Sept. 2002) from intermittent tributaries of the Alum Fork of the Saline River (Arkansas, U.S.A.) to quantify the response of fish and aquatic insect assemblage properties to seasonal desiccation and habitat fragmentation. We collected a total of 4219 individuals, representing 18 species of fishes and 27 families of aquatic insects. Changes ...