Ecological investigations on Hydrophilidae and Helophoridae (Coleoptera) specimens gathered from several water bodies of Western Turkey

Abstract

-The aim of this study is to present environmental variables which were effective on habitat preferences of Hydrophilidae and Helophoridae species found in western region of Turkey. The surveys were conducted in İzmir, Manisa and Aydın provinces and specimens were collected regularly during the years 2013 and 2014. Totally, 30 species classified in 8 genera of the two families were recorded. Physicochemical parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, electrical conductivity and salinity were measured from 99 different aquatic sites. The relationships between the species and the effect (s) of the mentioned parameters on the presence or absence of the beetles were evaluated by various statistical tests. According to the results; electrical conductivity, salinity and temperature are the main water parameters associated with aquatic beetle distribution. Pearson's correlation analysis coefficient between the salinity and electrical conductivity parameters was calculated as 0.965 which is statistically significant (p < 0.01). The relationships between environmental variables and the determined species were also evaluated with canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), and the distributions of species according to these variables were presented by using a CCA plot. Les paramètres physicochimiques incluant la température, l'oxygène dissous, le pH, la conductivité électrique et la salinité ont été mesurés dans 99 sites aquatiques différents. Les relations entre espèces et l'effet(s) des paramètres mentionnés sur la présence ou l'absence des coléoptères ont été évaluées par divers tests statistiques. Selon les résultats; la conductivité électrique, la salinité et la température sont les principaux paramètres associés à la distribution des coléoptères aquatiques. Le coefficient de corrélation de Pearson entre la salinité et les paramètres de conductivité électrique est de 0.965, statistiquement significatif (p < 0.01). Les relations entre les variables environnementales et les espèces déterminées ont également été évaluées par analyse canonique de correspondance (CCA), et les distributions des espèces selon ces variables ont été présentées en utilisant un diagramme CCA.Mots-clés : Hydrophilidae / Helophoridae / écologie / CCA / Turquie

A mechanistic understanding of ecological responses to land‐use change in headwater streams

“…Upon further investigation of individual taxa, we found that this positive relationship for scrapers was mostly explained by greater densities of riffle beetles (Coleoptera: Elmidae) at sites with greater salinities. Coleopterans are frequently found to tolerate wide salinity ranges (Akünal and Aslan ), with Elimdae being one of the most widely distributed families (Pérez‐Bilbao et al. ).…”

Taxonomic and Functional Diversity of Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages and Water Quality in Rivers of the Dry Tropics of Costa Rica

“…These Coleoptera abundances are supported by the fact that instead of pertaining mostly to Elmidae, as reported in other studies (Sánchez-Argüello et al, 2010a;Kohlmann et al, 2015), the majority of the Coleoptera in the present study belong to the Dytiscidae and Hydrophilidae families. Akünal and Aslan (2017) found that hydrophilids thrived well in river waters with high temperatures (28-45°C) in western Turkey, possibly a reflection that higher water temperatures may allow more rapid completion of larval stages (Fairchild et al, 2003). This information coincides because the Las Palmas river sites' mean temperatures are 2-3°C higher than those from the Colorado sites.…”