Aquatic Insects of the Lower East Fork, Little Miami River. Supplemental Reportfor the 'Aquatic Insects of Ohio' Project

摘要

Aquatic insects are important components of lotic and lentic habitats around theworld. Their behavior, ecology, and biography have significance from a purely scientific viewpoint. They play major roles in transforming and transporting energy and cycling nutrients in aquatic habitats. From an applied perspective, aquatic insects are important indicators of water quality. Because they are not highly mobile, they are unable to avoid chemical and physical perturbations, and their presence or absence reflects their habitat's water quality history. Relative sensitivity to organic and inorganic pollutants is usually species specific at non-acute levels. Quantitative studies of aquatic insect communities and populations can be a trying experience. As is true for many biological populations, there are year-to-year fluctuations in population density, and in some years a given taxa can be absent from a given reach of stream.