Excerpt: The identification of organisms is a prerequisite to developing water quality criteria for aquatic life. Identification is necessary because differences in water quality requirements are specific and may be different for closely allied species. The taxonomy of various species, particularly those associated with the aquatic environment, is much more detailed and better known for adults than for immature instars. To facilitate correlation of adult and larval forms, a trap was needed to collect the emerging adults from the various streams

Lemke, Armond E.

Mattson, Vincent R.

English

Valparaiso University

The Great Lakes Entomologist Volume 2 Numbers 1/2 -- Spring/Summer 1969 Numbers 1/2 -- Spring/Summer 1969 Article 4 June 2017 An Emergence Trap for Aquatic Insects Armond E. Lemke Vincent R. Mattson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle  Part of the Entomology Commons Recommended Citation Lemke, Armond E. and Mattson, Vincent R. 2017. "An Emergence Trap for Aquatic Insects," The Great Lakes Entomologist, vol 2 (1) Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol2/iss1/4 This Peer-Review Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biology at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Great Lakes Entomologist by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at scholar@valpo.edu. 1969 THE MICHIGAIV ENTOMOLOGIST 19 gate  on the beach a t  night to stablize o r  decrease water  loss. Most of the insects were older than 1 day and probably lost considerable amounts of moisture while resting in the woods during the day. LITERATURE CITED Burrill, A. C. 1913. Economic and biologic notes on the giant midge Chirono- mus (Tendipes) plumosus Meigen. Bull. Wis. Nat. Hist. Soc. 10:124-163. Hilsenhoff, W. L. 1959. The evaluation of insecticides for the control of Tendi- pes plumosus (Linnaeus). J. Econ. Entomol. 52:331-332. . 1966. The biology of Chironomus plumosus (Diptera: Chiro- nomidae) in Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. Ann Entomol. Soc. Amer. 59:465-473. . . 1967. Ecology and population dynamics of Chirorlomus plu- mosus (Diptera: Chironomidae) in Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 60: 1183-1194. Johnson, M. S. and F. Munger. 1930. Observations on excessive abundance of the midge Chironomus plumosus a t  Lake Pepin. Ecology 11: 110-126. Odum, E .  P .  1953. Fundamentals of ecology. Philadelphia. Syrjamaki, J .  1960. Humidity reactions and water  balance of Allochironomus crassiforceps Kieff. (Dipt., Chironomidae). Ann Entomol. Fenn. 26:138-155. . 1963. The change in the humidity reaction of Cricotopus silvestris Fabr,  (Dipt.. Chironomidae) during the swarming period. Ann. En- tomol. Fenn. 29:147-151. AN EMERGENCE TRAP FOR AQUATIC INSECTS Armond E. Lemke and Vincent R.  Mattson National Water Quality Laboratory Federal  Water Pollution Control Administration U.S. Department of the Interior Duluth, Minnesota 55804 The identification of organisms is  a prerequisite to developing water quality criteria for aquatic life. Identification i s  necessary because differences in water quality requirements a r e  specific and m a y  be different for closely allied species. The taxonomy of various species, particularly those associated with the aquatic environment, is  much more detailed and better known for adults than for immature instars. To facilitate correlation of adult and larval forms, a trap was needed to collect the emerging adults from the various streams. Traps and collecting devices reported in the literature usually lacked one of the following factors and in some cases were deficient in several of them. Corbet (1965) describes a trap which he used in a pond. He s tates  that the trap was affected by wave action and therefore was not suitable. Mundie (1956) describes three types of t raps used in sampling three types of collection sites. His s t ream trap i s  a small gauze-covered f rame which would not withstand 1Lemke and Mattson: An Emergence Trap for Aquatic InsectsPublished by ValpoScholar, 201720 THE - MICHIGAN ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 2, NOS. 1-2 stream fluctuations. Ide (1940) and Sprules (1947) report using a net of wire window screen stretched over a light wood frame. This was also very fragile and was dislodged by a rise in water level of about six inches. It was of such dimensions that the individual collecting the emerged adults had to kneel or squat to work in the trap. The trap described here is designed to eliminate these undesirable features. F~gure  1. General plan of the emergence trap. -The streams in northern Minnesota have a steep gradient and are subject to rapid fluctuations in flow and depth; a change of two feet in an hour is quite common after a heavy summer shower. Requirements of the trap include: ease of collection of the adults, transportability, an adequate size to cover a bottom area large enough to encompass a var~ety  of microhabitats, and rugged- ness to cope with the rapidly changing stream levels. Preliminary work indi- cated that a square trap was distorted by water pressure and the screen was torn by floating debris. The design (Figure 1) which was finally developed. consists of a triangular wood frame fastened together with nails and covered with Fiberglas window screen for retaining insects. The long sides were eight feet, the base of the tri- angle which contained the door was six feet across and the height was six feet. The upstream anchoring member of the triangle was a 2" x 4" of a good quality wood. All other members were 1" x 2" pine and the door was of 1" x 3" pine. Ordinary brass or Fiberglas screen and kitchen cabinet hardware were used. To minimize tearing of the trap by floating debris, 2' x 8' sheets of l/2" exterior grade plywood were applied to the outside bottom of the upstream sides of the trap. Trap corners were braced as  shown in Figure 2. The bottom of the trap was left open; the top was covered with Fiberglas screening. The screen used was 16 by 18 mesh and retained most insects except the smallest midges. The door was hinged from the top to swing upward. This kept the hinges out of the water and allowed the door to close by its own weight. This was useful when both hands were burdened. 2The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 2, No. 1 [2017], Art. 4https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol2/iss1/41969 THE MICHIGAN ENTOMOLOGIST 21 Figure 2. Corner detail. -The trap was anchored by a length of line running from a n  eyebolt through the 2 x 4 to a suitable anchor such a s  a large rock or strong t ree up- s t ream of the trap. I t  was found that  if the anchor point was on the inside of a curve in the s t ream the t rap  would swing out of the main channel under high water conditions without damage. The trap was easily repositioned when water conditions returned to normal. Five of the traps were constructed and four were still usable after a full summer of use. One t rap was demolished when a miscalculation in anchoring allowed i t  to smash against a bridge abutment under high water conditions. The approximately 175 pound traps were constructed a t  the laboratory and transported to sampling sites on a flatbed trailer. One of the traps was hauled for 50 miles over rough roads with no difficulty. Trapping success was very good; a s  many a s  1,000 individuals were collected within 48 hours. We a r e  of the opinion that the t rap would also be excellent for quantitative work if collections were made a t  more frequent intervals. One trap was moved periodically to bot- tom types that had various numbers of aquatic insects; the number of emerg- ing adults correlated with the abundance of larval forms. Most common types of aquatic insects were collected with the exception of some, such a s  Neurop- tera ,  which pupate in the bank soil and do not emerge directely from the water.  LITERATURE CITED Corbet, Philip S. 1965. An insect emergence t rap for quantitative studies in shallow ponds. Can. Entomol. 97:845-848. Ide, F. P .  1940. Quantitative determination of the insect fauna of rapid water. Pub. Ontario Fish. Res. Lab. 59: 1-20 (Univ. Toronto Stud., Biol. Ser. 47). Mundie, J. H. 1956. Emergence traps for aquatic insects. Int. Ass. Theoret. Appl. Limnol. 7: 1-13. Sprules, W. M. 1947. An ecological investigation of s t ream insects in Algonquin Park,  Ontario. Publ. Ontario Fish. Res. 69: 1-18 (Univ. Toronto Stud., Biol. Ser. 56). 3Lemke and Mattson: An Emergence Trap for Aquatic InsectsPublished by ValpoScholar, 2017

An Emergence Trap for Aquatic Insects

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