Chironomidae larvae from the lower Athabasca River, AB, Canada and its tributaries including macroscopic subfamily and tribe keys, indices for environmental tolerance and trait-based information for biomonitoring

Abstract

Since 2011 the Joint Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM) program has been conducted in the lower Athabasca River by the Governments of Canada and Alberta to assess the freshwater health in areas associated with oil sands development. The majority of the benthic invertebrate assemblage of the Athabasca River and its tributaries are Chironomidae larvae. Assessments of such benthic assemblages are made difficult because the identification of Chironomidae larvae is costly and time consuming. To facilitate this identification process, we aimed to develop a simple taxonomic key for Chironomidae larvae of this region. This taxonomic reference and identification key makes use of the known taxonomic details on these Chironomidae species. Moreover, we provide details on their geographical distribution, ecology, habitats, environmental tolerance values for species, and traitbased morphological characters. Our main goal was to make this information readily available to both non-specialists and specialists so that biomonitoring programs can more readily utilize these organisms in biomonitoring.

Oropuella, a new genus of Orthocladiinae from the western Nearctic

“…Perusal of Oliver et al (1990) demonstrates a large gap in faunistic records of Orthocladiinae in the west; this paucity of taxonomic information is not related to a lack orthoclads in the region, but rather the need for more taxonomic effort. Only preliminary faunistic work has been undertaken (Saether 1969, Sublette & Sublette 1971, Sublette et al 1998, Namayandeh & Culp 2016, although some material from the region has been treated in revisionary works of broader geographic scope (Saether 1975, Saether 1976, Soponis 1977, Oliver 1981, Oliver 1983, Saether & Sublette 1983, Soponis 1990, Cranston 1999, Hestenes & Saether 2000, Ferrington & Saether 2011 and isolated descriptions have been produced (Roback 1957, Cranston & Judd 1987, Cranston & Oliver 1988b, Oliver 1977, Oliver 1984.…”