Submitted by Patina Mendez on
Streams in the California Bay Area include: (a) intermittent streams that only flow for part of the year, and often are dry throughout the summer, (b) protected streams in national, state, regional, and county parts, and (c) urban streams that serve recreational needs and stormwater management. In this project, (1) we will catalog species diversity of adult caddisflies (Trichoptera) to understand their life history and reproductive periods, (2) use aquatic insects (benthic macroinvertebrates) to monitor urban streams and assess water quality, and (3) study the effect of artificial light at night on adult and larval life stages of insects. This project focuses on caddisflies and a few other aquatic insect groups. Part of the project focuses on the lab processing of the adult light-trap samples for intermittent streams and processing of larval samples for the protected and urban streams. Activities we will do include: (1) sorting the benthic macroinvertebrates from the collected material, (2) making identifications using dichotomous keys and “species notebook pages”, (3) some in-stream collections, and (4) capturing behavior using lab-based camera traps.
Sort and identify adult aquatic insects and other organisms from light trap samples. Work using a dissecting scope and use dichotomous and pictorial keys to identify organisms. Learn programming and scripting. Students will learn how to recognize freshwater aquatic invertebrates and identify organisms to the order and family level. Some fieldwork to make new collections.
Qualifications include interest in biology, particularly in freshwater systems, entomology; good organization skills, and attention to detail. We are also looking for students who are interested in creating resources of specimen-level information from the taxonomic literature to speed adult identifications. We enjoy working with students that are motivated to learn and seek hands-on experience in aquatic entomology. Experience with basic insect identification useful, but are not required.