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. In this project, we catalog species diversity of larval and adult aquatic insects during 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. This project focuses on caddisflies and a few other aquatic insect groups. 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. We 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 Caddisflies. We'll also be doing some in-stream collections this spring.
Sort and identify adult aquatic insects and other organisms from light trap samples. Work using a dissecting scope and use dichotomous and pictoral 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.
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.