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Aquatic Insects - Science topic

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Aquatic insects
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I have used minnow traps and seen odonates inside. One can reduce the size of the entry holes to prevent fish predators inside the traps. However my intention was not specifically odonates. For that one used dip nets swiped across reedy margins, but since you asked for a trap, i think a modified minnow trap could work.
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I'm an undergraduate student in biology, and I study aquatic insect ecology with a focus on biodiversity and conservation, ecotoxicology, and trophic relationships. Scientific materials on the evolution of aquatic insects would be important for a better overall understanding. However, I'm having difficulty finding these materials. Does anyone have any recommendations?
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Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman I understand that we can't observe the "production" of new species haha. I meant references of what science know about the phylogeny and, of course, adaptations. Used "evolution" in a general therm, rather than as a hypothesis. Thank you :)
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Some aquatic insect and juvenile fish were infected with cercariae then I need to extract next metacercariae stage from their tissue ...
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Water quality of a stream can be measured with the help of physical and chemical parameters experimenting along with the biotic index study of the insects inhabiting in it. How this study can be relate with the disease ecology?
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You need to compare disease-free sites on other stream with other disease-spreading sites by comparing the change in the chemical and physical properties of water.
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Hello everyone,
here a few pictures of an anophthalmic aquatic insect, I am unable to identify.
It was found in a small brook and lives in fastflowing hygropetric environment. Region: Jura mountains, Switzerland, 860 m asl.
Dorso-ventrically flattened, no eyes, no antennae, six short legs, white patches on the edges of the dorsal segments, long thorns laterally on the ventral segments. Could be some coleoptera larva?
In advance many thanks for any suggestion.
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Nothing to add more than colleagues' opinion.
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Dear colleagues, I am specialist form Chironomidae, but not much familiar with the midge larvae from the other families. I have one, strange to me, from spring in mountains from Kosovo. Would you help me with the identification? Maybe you could give me at least the family or maybe genus or species?
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Identification to species level is impossible as not all species have been thoroughly described in the larval stage. Recommend DNA sequencing if possible
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These eggs (?) are quite confused to identification under the light microscope. My friend who has research project about the diet composition of Celebes halfbeak, Nomorhamphus liemi found these things in their digestive tract. We thought these are maybe insect eggs, or some microorganisms' eggs, according to the main diet of this fish is insects (larvae insects in river bodies). So, here are some photos of the "eggs", sorry for the limited photos we had.
Thank you.
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Timothy A Ebert & James Des Lauriers : Okey thank you very much all, so dissapointed that my friend only send me that picture. I'll updated this post if got new pictures with more detailed information of size.
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I found this insect in the digestive tract content of Hypoatherina temminckii (marine fish). The sampling location in seagrass waters of Karang Congkak Island, Kepulauan Seribu (Seribu Island), Indonesia. I can't identify the insect groups, I just suppose this is part of Diptera but have never seen marine (or semi-aquatic) insects in my sampling location.
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In the upper picture, in my opinion, a diptera from the family Syrphidae
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I have a data set of an insect community composition (17 insect species, raw abundance data, sampled 5 times over 60 days within 24 tanks( 4 replicates). There were 3 treatments( free fish, caged fish, absent fish) involved with 2 levels (open and closed tanks) for each treatment.
And my question is does community composition and diversity change over time? And if so, are these changes different under different treatments?
I am considering to use bray-curtis index(BCI) to address this question. However by looking BCI up, it seems that BCI calculates coeffiecients between different sites(spatial distances). If that's true, my dataset doesn't have sites. I was wondering if it's possible that replicates or treatments can be considered at sites (spatial distance)?
Or is PERMANOVA a better way to answer this question?
(a preview of what my dataset looks like in is in the jpeg file)
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Hello, i know that this post was posted since long-time, but i realized the same type of experiments and an ecologist statistician recommanded me to use "Principal response curve (PRC), an extended of RDA (redundancy analysis) because is adapted to repeated measurement and time variation.
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I'm working on an aquatic insect that produces silk and I would like to know if every silk has a composition of fibroin (highest percentage) and sericin. Thank you!
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Thank you!
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The insect was found under the stone in small river in Montenegro. Thanks in advance.
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It's best to put the insect in a small dish if available and completely submerge the animal in liquid to get better pictures.
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We will be collecting and keeping stonefly, caddisfly, and mayfly naiads. Thanks for any advice or recommended literature.
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Please take a look at this useful PDF attachment.
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I would like to analyze a test of aquatic insects, indicator species of headwaters.
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Hi Libourn,
The Indval Package is used in R plataform. Then you will dowloading this package in R and just follow the instructions described by Pierre Legendre.
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These individuals were collected from the walls of an experimental aquarium. The organisms living in the experimental aquarium are marine amphipods. The aquarium has a closed-circuit filter system, the salinity of the water is ~ 36 ‰ and the replacement saline water is created by using artificial salts.
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Hi!
I would say these are harpacticoid copepods. It may be the genus Euterpina? (although don't take my word on the genus)
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For dispersal from one waterbody to another or perhaps even from one catchment to another, aquatic insects follow the stream and/or suppose to use the polarization visibility of the watersurface. But is it also possible that insects can smell water? I discussed this with a colleague just today during a lecture on dispersal of aquatic insects from one waterbody to another. Is it possible that adult insects move to another waterbody/stream over land using their smell to find water?
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Hello Ton;
It might be helpful to reframe the question with a couple of anecdotal observations.
1. Many ants are highly sensitive to humidity gradients.
2. Sand-dwelling roaches in the sand dunes of southern California are also very sensitive to humidity gradients.
Demonstrating these sensitivities are straightforward in the lab. I'm not aware of any papers that describe a mechanism. There's a project!
Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
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It was collected with a plankton net in an estuary. It is about 10 mm length.
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Clara;
Your specimen is a dipteran larva. It looks very much like Ephydra, a genus of shoreflies/brine flies (Ephydridae). If you have access to the old (and somewhat out of date) "Aquatic Insects of California", check out the illustraion on p, 472. There are other families of aquatic larvae that somewhat resemble your photo- Empididae & Syrphidae. However, from what I can see, shoreflies are your best match.
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I work primarily in Arkansas. I know there's no field guide or anything that would be the snail equivalent of Merritt and Cummins Introduction to Aquatic Insects, but some regional resources for the SE U.S. would be very helpful in my current position. I have never found a lot of good resources for this group when it comes to learning field identification and would like to include these in future biological inventory work.
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Thank you!
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Looking to sample net spinning caddisflies in deep water but also want to look at colonisation at different depths. I am thinking of using a pole eg 5 m with multiple Hester-Dendy attached along its length.
Thanks in advance.
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We have used hester dendy samplers in a large river situation using anchors and large bouys with the samplers suspended from a separate, weighted line off the bouy. The bouys and sampler lines were monitored for debris on a weekly basis and were cleared as needed.
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Recently I came across a Hyphydrus specimen from Slovakia, which I at first glance thought would be H. ovatus. Nevertheless there seem to be some discrepancies, mainly a distinct central suture on each elytra (similar to H. aubei), which doesnt fit to the H. ovatus characteristics, despite similar appearence (overall reddish colour, with no distinct colour patterns). Could it be H. anatolicus maybe?
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Hi
I agree with the researchers above said it seems Hyphydrus ovatus (Linnaeus, 1761) and see the reference below.
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I am doing research on aquatic insect’s larva and I carried out sampling during sunrise and sunset using kick net. I am wondering whether the sunrise and sunset will affect the composition of aquatic insects or not?
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Do you study streams or ponds? 
For pond invertebrates, Csabai and coworkers have studied dispersal patterns throughout the day and found that most insects and bugs have dispersal peaks around sunset and sunrise and also at noon, due to changes in horizontally polarized light. 
This will ofcourse only affect flight capable adults and oviposition, as larvae don't fly. 
Freshwater biology 2006: doi 10.1111/j.1365-2427.2006.01576.x
Naturwissenschaften 2012: DOI 10.1007/s00114-012-0957-6
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This invertebrate was found in the guts of a juvenile dace from the River Teme,  Worcestershire, England. From a mudstone river.
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It seems likely.   The antennae are highly segmented along the length with larger segments closer to the head.  It looks like you have the sclerite from the front of the dorsal side of the head.  There are 34 species in your part of the planet so narrowing down what you have might not be to challenging.    In the bottom photo near the bottom; 1/3 over from right......is that a pair of tarsal claws?  That would also point to Plecotera.
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I am looking for a key for Thienemanniella (Orthocladiinae) of the Holarctic region, based on larval characters. Can anyone provide me with one? Or point out relevant literature I might have missed? Thanks!
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Schmid 1993 mention in his key Thienemanniella acuticornis, clavicornis, partita, majuscula, vittata, sp. D and sp. E
Schmid P.E. 1993. A key to the Chironomidae and their instars from Austrain Dunbe region streams and rivers. Part I, Diamesinae, Prodiamesinae and Orthocladiinae. p. 470-482.  
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I'm curious if anyone has used the positive relationship between latitude and the length-dry mass power coefficients for aquatic insects found in this paper (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259550032_The_biogeography_of_insects%27_length-dry_mass_relationships) and compared it with northern european populations?
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Makes 25 years found that the plants tropical Cuban in West had leaves more small that the Oriental. Long after I made a data base with the Cuban endemic plants. It first that could make was an index of aridity biological large scale starting from the centers of origin of the flora, as well as an index of speciation. When performing a correlation table, I found that the Cuban western plains are less arid than the West. Therefore, the known variations of due to this. Other comparisons I allowed to find other many correlations. These comparisons allowed me to determine that variations in the phylogeny can be dichotomous, but the geological and climatic are reticulate. On the other hand, climatic and geological variables are independent variables, while the phylogeny is always dependent variable.
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Identification
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Libellulidae. Antennae diferents in Gomphidae.
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Use of the Encyclopedias of Aquatic Insects of South America
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and still many names keep ending on "sp#" :P
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Dear Everyone!
I am stuck with the ID of this aquatic insect larva. My thoughts are that it is a caddisfly (Insecta: Trichoptera).
The larva appared caseless in the sample and we tried to ID it with the keys of Waringer & Graf (1997, 2013). But we ran into dead end by all caseless groups.
I would be extremely thankful for any kind of help, at any stages of identification.
Best regards,
Peter
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This is clearly an Elmidae: Coleoptera - riffle beetles. Where was it collected?
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There is little literature about the diet of Ochthebius beetles and some suggestions that they may be predatory. They are extremely abundant in hypersaline systems, and we need to understand their interactions with brine shrimps Artemia. Has anyone found evidence that their larvae can feed on Artemia cysts or other resting eggs of crustaceans, as has been described for Anacaena larvae (Dimentman & Spira 1982 Hydrobiologia)?
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Hi there, I checked with Prof. Patrick Sorgeloos and he sends this response:
I checked your request with Prof. Patrick De Clercq (who is very much involved in bio-control with insects, and using Artemia cysts as feed in large scale production). Here is his answer: “… as larvae of these beetles are predators and given brine shrimp, or at least their cysts were found suitable food for a variety of predators, including certain types of beetles, I should not be surprised. However, I have not seen field records of such predation on Artemia by this Ochthebius beetles. One possibility would be to study this using molecular gut content analysis of the "field" collected larvae ...”
Good luck and best wishes for the season, Cornelia E Nauen
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Mostly biotic indices I have found all based on lotic ecosystems. Only Nepal lake biotic index (NLBI) is the only index I came across that can be used in lentic ecosystems.
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Hi there, in Germany/Europe the Water Framework Directive has led to the development of a relatively new method for the ecological assessment of lakes called AESHNA. The corresponding method for rivers (called PERLODES) has been in use for several years now and delivers very good results about the moorphological degradation, saprobical conditions and water acidity. I have not worked with AESHNA yet, but I guess that it will provide a similar holistic view on the macrozoobenthos, assessing different metrics like diversity indices, trophical indices or habitat assessment.
You can find a brief overview (in English) here:
And there is a short list of publications in English as well:
Miler, O., Port, G., McGoff, E., Pilotto, F., Donohue, L., Jurca, T., Solimini, A., Sandin, L., Irvine, K., Aroviita, J., Clarke, R., Pusch, M. (in press): Morphological alterations of lake shores in Europe – a multimetric ecological assessment approach using benthic macroinvertebrates. Ecological Indicators
McGoff, E., Solimini, A., Pusch, M.T., Jurca, T., Sandin, L. (early online): Does lake habitat alteration and land-use pressure homogenize European littoral macroinvertebrate communities? Journal of Applied Ecology
Lyche-Solheim, A. Feld, C. , Birk, S., Phillips, G., Carvalho, L. , Morabito, G., Mischke, U., Willby, N. , Sondergaard, M., Hellsten, S. , Kolada, A., Mjedle, M., Böhmer, J., Miler, O., Pusch, M.T., Argillier, C., Jeppesen, E., Lauridsen, T., Poikane, S. (2013): Ecological status assessment of European lakes: a comparison of metrics for phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish. Hydrobiologia 704: 57-74
Porst, G., Bader, S., Münch, E,. Pusch, M.T. (2012): Sampling approaches for the assessment of shoreline development based on littoral macroinvertebrates: the case of Lake Werbellin, Germany. Fundamental and Applied Limnology 180: 123 – 131
Brauns, M., Garcia, X.-F., N. Walz & Pusch, M.T. (2007): Effects of human shoreline development on littoral invertebrates in lowland lakes. Journal of Applied Ecology, 44, 1138-1144
I hope that helps you getting started.
All the best,
Michael
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This larva was collected (among many others) from a small stream in West Hungary. I have tried to identify it, but marks given by the keys i have does not fit for the specimens.
A fact that makes this case more difficult, that the abdomen is completely missing so the gills cannot be used for more accurate identification.
I have uploaded some detail pictures which represent marks and traits.
Thank you in advance for the help!
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Hi Peter,
As Alfonso already wrote, the 4 setae in a single straight row (inner side of prementum) are very characteristic for Platycnemididae. In Hungary you only have Platycnemis pennipes. The shape of the angled occiput fits very well too.
No question: P. pennipes - a very common stream dweller in Central Europe.
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These cyst like structures have been recovered from surface samples collected from a tropical lake bed in high abundance.
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I agree with Jyoti Srivastava. Arcella is a genus of testate amoebae usually found in freshwaters. They occur in rocks of all ages, ranging from Permian to Recent.
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I am interested in understanding how the process of dispersal acts on the structure of macroinvertebrate communities in headwaters streams.
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Related to this, the recent Kissling et al review on telemetry in insects should also be interesting:
Kissling WD, Pattemore DE, Hagen M: Challenges and prospects
in the telemetry of insects. Biol Rev 2014, 89:511-530.
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I found some larvae on my Culex oviposition traps and observed them to be predatory to other mosquito larvae as well as cannibalistic to other of its instars. The larva is slightly larger than of common mosquitoes but smaller than Toxorhynchites. Could not produce a clearer pic as of the moment. Thank you!
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First by looking at your photo I'd say you have a Corethrella sp. and not a mosquito.  They are predatory and fairly closely related to mosquitoes.  You might email Art Borkent in Canada about your specimens.  He recently revised the family worldwide and I bet you have a new species.
In terms of mosquitoes certainly the genus Lutzia or subgenus Culex (Lutzia) depending on the taxonomist has many predatory species.  It is hard to tell about your photo but I still bet it is a Corethrella sp.
Corethrela are interesting because the females feed on frog blood and are attracted to frog calls.
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I am supposed to have new species of Chironomidae for Moldova according to Fauna Europaea database, but I want to be completely sure and looking for any papers concerning Chironomidae for this country. Could you help me?
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Sure Mateusz, I will try to help you, because both books enough rare. As to the question, I'm not adherent of political approaches for the fauna parting in biogeography. In my country such thing like "the Ukrainian Carpathians" is sometimes using between scientists. I recommend tham the ukrainian part of the Eastern Carpathians. Or for water creatures - the Prut basin, the Tisa river basin. Anyway, we cannot avoid smtms necessity as in Red Books, because in conservation measures in some cases hardly to go out of the borders.
Chironomids  in Polishchuk books have been identified by girls-laborants from his team, and they are not so qualified... So, take care with rare species. Garassevitch is a hydro-chemist – enough good specialist. As well the data of microzoobenthos are wery good, especially1985 as had been done under guidence Natalia Kovalchuk (look RG).
Cheers,
Andrey
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I'm studying the diet of the african clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) in Portugal and I've found these structures in a few stomachs but I can't identify them, given that they don't seem to belong to any of the other items that appear in the same stomachs. This frog's diet is mostly composed by benthic and nektonic prey but they also eat terrestrial invertebrates.
Does anyone know of some arthropod with similar structures in any stage? 
Thanks in advance!
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Here is a photo of a piece of Xenopus shed skin (taken from an aquarium containing Xenopus). Quality of photo is bad because I took it with an iPhone through the microscope lens. Anyway, compare it with your photos. You can see the dark spicules I mentioned in my previous message. Note that in your case shed skin is probably already slightly altered by gastric acid. Still doubting ;-) ?
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We want to mark boatmen (Corixidae) to study how individuals move within a pond. We have evidence that they move very little. We tried permanent markers but they can rub anywhere on their body with their legs, and they quickly rub off the mark. Does anyone have any suggestions about a suitable method?
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Hi
We used, for crayfish, underwater markers such as the ones made by Dykem. However this may not solve your problem if the animal can rub the off the mark very quickly. If you try this solution, be aware that some of the marker models have hard tips making very difficult the direct use of the marker on the insect. If you need a reference for this method you can check:
Ramalho, R. O., McClain, W. R., & Anastácio, P. M. (2010). An effective and simple method of temporarily marking crayfish. Freshwater Crayfish, 17(1), 57-60.
good luck
Pedro
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I'm looking for a kind of analysis with order to study the communities structure of insects aquatic before and after discontinuity habitat in streams
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Dear Hugo,
As others have mentioned in their answers, it depends on what you are trying to say with the data. If all you want to do is explore how different communities are before and after discontinuity (I'm assuming this is flow interruption or drying), then you should probably use non-metric multidimensional scaling, assuming you have a data set with lots of 'zeros' (i.e. the same species are not found in each site and each sample). If your data are normally distributed (extremely rare in community data), then you could use something like principle components analysis. If your main goal is to use measured environmental factors to explain community composition (AND you think that you measured all of the important environmental factors that explain community composition in your community), then you could use something like canonical correspondence analysis. If your main purpose is to break your sample units into 'groups' of sample types, or to see if your community data match some expected grouping pattern, then you could use a multivariate test like multi-response permutation proceedure (MRPP) or analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) or perMANOVA. A cluster analysis is also a quick way to look at how samples may fall into groups, but it should be noted that most cluster analysis techniques form groups in a confined way-- by looking at only the two most-related samples at a time-- so you can form some strange groupings at time because of this process. MRPP, ANOSIM, or perMANOVA would be a better approach if you already have some a priori reason to assign your samples to groups (e.g. by watershed or by before/after disturbance). 
You can run most of these analyses in R, or use programs like PC-Ord ($199), CANOCO (~$300), or others. 
I hope that helps!
Cheers,
Michael
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It was attached on the leaves of eelgrass Zostera marina in May in a lagoon. We found them in May, when temperature was about 16oC. We collected them and brought them back to lab. After the bubles broke, the eggs changed as the figure showed.
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The first and second emerged stages look like trochophore larvae, but already with traces of segmentation, especially in the second. On the first there appears to be an apical tuft near to the arrow head and on the second, it looks as though there is a prototroch with the cilia in focus at top and bottom of the image. To confirm this you would need to focus up and down to check that there is a band of cilia all the way round the larva. Also, it would be good to observe live larvae in which the beating of the cilia should be obvious. These are quite large larvae, so are likely to be lecithotrophic. There appear to be bundles of chaetae coming from each segment. Again, focusing up and down would give a clearer idea of the nature of these bundles.
A polychaete seem likely and there are some polychaetes that bore into seagrasses as adults. 
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mostly searchging for papers about chironomids, but not only, also all the others invertebrates.
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Hi Mateusz,
You may find the following attached links of use for non-chironomid hypogean invertebrates. The website link has species descriptions and further links that you may find useful, and the PDF is a small, simple guide entitled Cave Life in Britain.
Cheers,
Drew.
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I'm raising larvae of dragonflies, and several specimens pretend to be dead when I change the water or when I touch them. Could this be a defense mechanism to avoid predators? I have been looking for information but apparently this is not very common mechanism with this order.
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Dear Jonathan, thanatosis is indeed a response to threat that has been not only shown to occur but also has a survival value in damselfly larvae (Ischnura elegans (Coenagrionidae) Freya, Gyssels and Stoks, 2005 Ethology 111: 411-423). This response is shown when damselfly larvae were confronted with either dragonfly or fish predators. Whether thanatosis is shown by dragonflies is not known but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.
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I have the Askew: Dragonflies of Europe, 2004. But the damselfly, Coenagrion ornatum, that I want to study is not in it. Can someone help me with a few good identification keys?
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Hi Anna,
- this book is probably the best guide for exuviae (and larvae) on the market (and includes the discrimination of Coenagrion ornatum from other species of the genus). You'll have to buy that, it's not available as a PDF, but it's worth the price. A bit of a problem is the Dutch language, but the numerous photographs help a lot to identify a species. There is also a very good guide by Steve Cham for the UK, however with less species included (and without Coenagrion ornatum). Note that the Dutch authors of the first book I recommend are currently working on an according guide for all European species, then in English language - we are all eagerly waiting for this publication.
Regards
Florian
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Elmidae larvae
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Hi Alex. Here are some details about the taxonomic key that David mentioned above:
Glaister, A. (1999) Guide to the identification of Australian Elmidae larvae (Insecta: Coleoptera). Identification Guide No. 21, Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology: Albury
Apparently it has a key to larvae of the following genera: Coxelmis, Kingolus, Notriolus, Simsonia
See this website for details about how to buy the guide (AUD38.50):
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I had a paper which suggested a brand, but for the life of me, I can not find it again, either in my files or globally. Papilio produces one (http://www.papilio.com/inkjet%20waterproof%20adhesive%20film%20media.html), but none of their listed applications are actually underwater (I've put in an email to them regarding this).
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To Dave and Alessandro: permanent submersion in water is the source of all the trouble... (BTW, Tomas Ditrich is my colleague - they used a method similar to what we did with diving beetles but their bugs do not dive :)
To Randolph: I would also be happy to know what solution you found to be working best for you in the meantime, especially for beasts with smooth elytra, such as Graphoderus or male Acilius.