Use of an elemental marker, rubidium, to study dispersal of aquatic insects

Evaluation of δD and δ18O as natural markers of invertebrate source environment and dispersal in the middle Mississippi River‐floodplain ecosystem

“…Further research should assess the effect of feeding on changes in δD signatures of adult aquatic insects over time. In contrast to artificial labelling methods for tracking dispersal of adults of aquatic insect taxa (Payne and Dunley, 2002; Caudill, 2003), use of δD and other natural tracers of invertebrate dispersal is not limited to relatively discrete locations in which application of an artificial label is practical. Thus, natural tracers such as δD will facilitate assessment of population and food web subsidies provided by adult stages of aquatic insects at a landscape scale (e.g.…”

“…Intensive sampling at habitat interfaces is labour intensive, limiting the number of locations that can be sampled, and does not enable identification of individuals that disperse well beyond the boundaries of their source environment. Dispersal of immature and emerging adult aquatic insects has also been investigated by artificially marking immature aquatic invertebrates with chemical labels such as rubidium (Payne and Dunley, 2002) or compounds enriched in the heavy stable isotope of nitrogen ( 15 N) (Hershey et al ., 1993; Caudill, 2003). However, artificial labelling of aquatic invertebrates is more appropriate for relatively small streams and ponds and would not be practical for a landscape‐scale investigation of aquatic invertebrate dispersal in large river‐floodplain ecosystems.…”

Use of Transgenic Plants to Measure Insect Herbivore Movement

“…Unless additional Rb is consumed, the Rb concentration in the insects will gradually return to background levels as it is replaced by K over a period of days to weeks, depending on the insect species and life stage (Shepard and Waddill 1976, Wolfenbarger et al 1982, Fleischer et al 1986, Fleischer and Kirk 1994, Woods and Streett 1996, Rhodes et al 1998, Prasifka et al 2001. In an aquatic environment, treatment of lake water with RbCl resulted in marked insects even 1 yr after treatment (Payne and Dunley 2002). The relatively slow Rb concentration decline in marked insects is useful to study dispersal occurring over relatively long periods.…”

Effective Sampling Area: A Quantitative Method for Sampling Crayfish Populations in Freshwater Marshes

“…However, all of these marks fade over time and are lost during molts. Large numbers of insect larvae can be batch marked in streams by introducing a stable isotope tracer that labels detrital food resources and ultimately the insect larvae that consume them (Payne and Dunley 2002;Briers et al 2004;Macneale et al 2004). Long-term marks (batch and individual) for crustaceans include radioactive tags (Merkle 1969), internally injected ink (Hobbs 1978), external nylon suture tags (Paret et al 1987), implanted microchips (Guan and Wiles 1997), coded wire tags (Isely and Eversole 1998), radio telemetry transmitters (Bohl 1999;Gherardi and Barbaresi 2000), visible implant fluorescent elastomer tags (Parkyn et al 2002), and PIT tags (Bubb et al 2002).…”