The Oomycete fungus Crypticola clavulifera was pathogenic for laboratory-reared and field-collected larval Diptera, including the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, Ae. notoscriptus, Anopheles farauti No. 1 and 3, Culex annulirostris, Cx. quinquefasciatus and the chironomid midge Chironomus tepperi. Zoospores were produced in water held at 15, 20 and 25 degrees C and were pathogenic for Ae. aegypti larv...

In this paper we describe a method for the rapid mass isolation of polytene nuclei from Chironomus salivary glands. The procedure for the isolation of glands involves 5 principal steps; (a) freezing Chironomus larvae in liquid propane; (b) breaking open frozen animals in a pre-cooled mortar; (c) thawing the fragments in sucrose medium, free of divalent cations; (d) pressing the suspension of br...

An ecological risk assessment (ERA) was conducted for Shadegan Wetland in Iran. The objective of this study was to assess the risk to phytoplankton, zooplankton, invertebrate, insect larvae, and fish affected by pesticide in Shadegan Wetland. Five pesticides (DDT, Aldrine, Dieldrin, Ametryn and Lindane) were assessed to evaluate the impact to aquatic community in the Shadegan Wetland. The risk ...

As there is still little knowledge of interactions between microplastics (MP) and hydrophilic compounds, we propose ways the toxicity pesticides can be modulated by MP, when sorption excluded. Larvae Chironomus riparius were exposed to thiacloprid (TH, 1 µg/L) polystyrene microplastic particles (PS; <50 µm; 150,000 1,000,000 particles/L) for 96 h, solely or in co-exposure. Burrowing behavior...

Diversity and biomass of Chironomidae larvae were studied between January-November 1993 and March-November 1994 in an impacted lagoon in Rio de Janeiro, Southeastern Brazil, in an attempt to establish the ecological consequences of anthropogenic eutrophication processes. Nine hundred and seventy-five organisms belonging to the Tanypodinae, Orthocladiinae, and Chironominae were collected. Polype...

The reproduction and morphogenesis of Rickettsiella chironomi, an unusual procaryotic parasite of midge larvae, was studied with electron microscopy. The morphogenic cycle was similar to that found in chlamydia and consisted of four major cell types: (i) medium-sized spherical initial bodies (ca. 1 micrometers in diameter), (ii) large spherical initial bodies (1.5-2 micrometers), (iii) spherica...

We conducted experiments to determine isotope changes in the deposit-feeding chironomid larvae Chironomus acerbiphilus during feeding, starvation and metamorphosis. Isotope changes in chironomid larvae occurred mainly during growth and rarely afterward. This finding indicates that chironomid isotope turnover mainly occurs in conjunction with growth and suggests that chironomid larvae only break...