Biology and Ecology of Higher Diptera from Freshwater Wetlands

Abstract

Although studies of freshwater entomofauna frequently do not include the biodiversity and ecological roles of higher Diptera, cyclorraphous flies are often numerous and species rich in wetlands. Seventeen families are commonly found in freshwater wetlands, with Ephydridae, Chloropidae, Sciomyzidae, Sphaeroceridae, and Scathophagidae being among the most important in terms of population size and species richness. Difficulty with sampling cryptic larval habitats and species identification challenges may account for the exclusion of acalyptrate and other dipterans from wetlands ecology studies. Large populations are facilitated by the high productivity of freshwater wetlands and the high intrinsic rate of increase characteristic of many species. Higher dipterans exist in all freshwater wetland types, are microhabitat selective, and play significant roles in food webs. The varied strategies for food acquisition and patterns of spatial and temporal distribution limit ecological overlap among the higher Diptera.

Influences of forest harvest and environmental gradients on aquatic invertebrate communities of seasonal ponds

“…Similarly, upland specialists can be found in terrestrial wetland vegetation (Haslett, 1997;Wettstein and Schmid, 1999). Peatland specific flies make up only about 20% of certain Canadian bog and fen faunas (Marshall, 1994), yet this low percentage is viewed as representing comparatively high peatland specificity, as such percentages are typically lower still (Keiper et al, 2002;Savage et al, 2011). Although classification of wetlands into various types (overview in Mitsch and Gosselink, 2007) has been an important component in both the understanding of larger scale vegetation patterns and in developing wetland conservation measures, these classifications should be extended to faunal assemblages with caution, particularly for aquatic fauna (see also Euliss et al, 2004).…”

“…Finnamore (1994) for instance found that arthropods represented 77% of terrestrial taxa in an Alberta fen and related habitats, versus 16% and 6% for plant and vertebrate taxa, respectively (see also Keiper et al, 2002;Spitzer and Danks, 2006;Savage et al, 2011). Simonson et al (2001) found montane wet meadows to have disproportionately high butterfly diversity, despite accounting for a small proportion of the landscape.…”

Challenges in Assessing Ecological Impacts of Construction and Demolition Waste on Wetlands: A Case Study

“…However, there were significant differences (albeit explaining a low proportion of variance) between community compositions according to the habitat status and among sites. This is likely due to the wide variety of ecological associations within many dipteran families (Keiper et al, 2002;Oosterbroek, 2006). As shown in Table 6, there are a number of dipteran families and morphospecies that were significant bioindicators of both infill (six families and seven morphospecies) and wetland (four families and nine morphospecies).…”

Relaciones de abundancia de órdenes de hexápodos terrestres en vegas altoandinas del desierto-transicional de Chile

“…Esto es probable que se deba a que ellas ofrecen un conjunto diverso de microhábitats y recursos alimentarios en abundancia para su colonización y explotación. Estudios realizados en humedales alpinos (p.e., Wissinger et al 2003) y de tierras bajas (p.e., Batzer & Wissinger, 1996;Keiper et al 2002) sugieren que la variabilidad propia de estos ambientes desempeña un papel importante en la determinación de los patrones de invertebrados. Una situación similar puede ocurrir en las vegas de este estudio.…”