Life cycle, feeding and secondary production of Plecoptera community in a constant temperature stream in Central Europe

Community structure, life histories and secondary production of stoneflies in two small mountain streams with different degree of forest cover

“…Flight period extends from the end of spring to the beginning of autumn, but occurs mainly in summer (Illies, 1955;Fochetti and Tierno de Figueroa, 2008;Graf et al, 2009). Our estimated annual secondary production (13.5 mg DW m −2 ) was ten times lower than it was in karst spring of Prosiečanka River (Bottová et al, 2013), but very similar as Krno (1997) found in granite section of Carpathian mountain stream (18 mg DW m −2 ). L. nigra is euryecous species, inhabiting hyporhithral to eucrenal zones of Carpathian streams (Krno, 1982;.…”

“…It is eurythermophilous species inhabiting different types of lotic biotopes in a large scale of altitude but it prefers epirhithral and metarhitral zone of streams (Krno, 2007;Graf et al, 2009). It is generally known, that L. prima has a univoltine life cycle with spring flight period (Illies, 1955;Krno, 1982Krno, , 1998Zwick, 1990;Fochetti and Tierno de Figueroa, 2008;Graf et al, 2009) although Bottová et al (2013) identified unusual bivoltine life cycle for this species in karst spring only few kilometers lower, below our studied sites. In L. prima, we noted a typical life cycle with spring imagines occurrence and summer diapause.…”

“…Furthermore, annual stonefly production measured in limestone stream Ľubčianka ranged from 914 mg DW m −2 year -1 to 1318 mg DW m −2 year -1 (Krno, 1997). Extremely high annual stonefly production (4304 mg DW m −2 year -1 ) was found in karst spring in lower stretch of Prosiečanka River (Bottová et al, 2013). In sandstone streams compared to others, e.g.…”

“…Stonefly nymphs are conspicuous component and essential links in the food webs in running water ecosystems (Hynes, 1970;Stewart and Stark, 1993). Most stonefly species are stenothermic; consequently, variations in thermal regime of watercourses can limit their distribution (Ward, 1985;Quinn and Hickey, 1990) and determine changes in their life history attributes (Brittain, 1983;Brittain et al, 1984;Sweeney and Vannote, 1986;Perry et al, 1987;Lillehammer et al, 1989;Li et al, 2011;Bottová et al, 2013;Krno et al, 2013). In particular, the distributions and life histories of stoneflies can be strongly affected by riparian deforestation (O'Hop et al, 1984;Quinn et al, 1997;Krno, 2000.…”

Assigning functional feeding groups to aquatic arthropods in a Neotropical mountain river

“…Additionally, some groups (e.g. Plecoptera) are known to change their diets throughout nymphal development (Bottová et al 2013), but we could not verify this aspect since we did not discriminate diets by size given that, in many cases, the number of individuals was very small. Reynaga & Rueda (2014) studied the trophic role of 3 Marilia species (Trichoptera: Odontoceridae) based on analyses of diets and mouthpart morphology.…”