Submitted by Patina Mendez on
Streams in California have a variety of forms including: (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. The project includes cataloging species diversity of larval and adult aquatic insects to understand their life history and assess water quality of these resources. For adult insects, we aim to know which species are flying at different times of year. For larval insects, we aim to understand how the presence of taxa changes in response to environmental conditions, some of which are human influenced. The current phase of the project will focus on the lab processing of the adult light-trap samples for intermittent streams and processing of larval samples for the protected and urban streams. For all projects, team members will sort the benthic macroinvertebrates from the collected material and make identifications using dichotomous keys and will be making “species notebook pages” to help rapidly identify California Aquatic Insects. We'll also be doing some fieldwork this spring.
Sort and identify adult aquatic insects and other organisms from light trap and kick samples. Work using a dissecting scope and use dichotomous and pictorial keys to identify organisms. Students will learn how to recognize freshwater aquatic invertebrates and identify organisms to the order and family level. Some fieldwork to make new collections. Members of the lab will also help with other lab projects (e.g., Senior Thesis projects to learn about undergraduate research) from time to time.
Qualifications include interest in biology, particularly in freshwater systems or 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. Team members must be available to work for 3 hours at a time once a week when the lab is open. Experience with basic insect identification useful but are not required.
In your application statement, please answer the following questions in this order (up to 1 paragraph each):
1. Why are you interested in aquatic insects and this project? What experiences have you had with insects or aquatic habitats?
2. What field or lab experience do you have? It’s ok if you are applying to this project as your first research experience.
3. What do you think you want to do after you graduate? How does this experience potentially connect? If you don’t know, explain about what you hope to learn from participating in this research.
4. Is there anything else you want to share about your interest?