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Seasonal mass migration of water boatmen (Hemiptera: Corixidae) as a wetland-river linkage and dietary subsidy to riverine fish
Federated Research Data Repository / dépôt fédéré de données de recherche
Srayko, Stephen H.; Jardine, Timothy D.; Phillips, Iain D.; Chivers, Douglas P. — 2022-01-12 We investigated the magnitude and implications of a little understood ecosystem linkage in the form of migrating aquatic insects, corixids (Hemiptera: Corixidae), that fly from geographically isolated wetlands into large rivers in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America every fall, to overwinter. These migrations can lead to greatly increased riverine corixid densities and a shift in the species assemblage to one dominated by wetland-breeding species. Once in the rivers, these migratory insects act as an important dietary subsidy to several species of riverine fish. The following dataset contains files from our study with information on (1) study sites, (2) corixid abundances and (3) species composition in wetland and river habitats, (4) fish stomach content data, (5) data from passive samplers used to estimate migratory corixid inputs into rivers, and (6) a simulation used to estimate the magnitude of the corixid flux between wetlands and rivers over a larger scale. This study has demonstrated an extensive cross-boundary flux that occurs between spatially separated wetland and river ecosystems, highlighting a need for conservation to ensure that this connection is maintained.
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Overwintering of water boatmen (Hemiptera: Corixidae)
Federated Research Data Repository / dépôt fédéré de données de recherche
Srayko, Stephen H. — 2022-12-22 We investigated the ability of water boatmen (Hemiptera: Corixidae), an aquatic insect, to survive the winter encased in air pockets within the ice of shallow wetlands. We extracted and experimentally thawed large blocks of ice from prairie wetlands in Saskatchewan, Canada, from which we examined the species composition and revival of corixids. While multiple corixid species were present in wetlands prior to freeze-up, two species, Cymatia americana Hussey, 1920 and Dasycorixa hybrida Hungerford, 1926, comprised the vast majority of corixids that were found in the ice later in winter, and only C. americana revived after ice thawing. Being encased within an air pocket appears to be necessary for the survival of corixids in the ice. Other invertebrate taxa also revived after thawing, including Haliplidae and Dytiscidae encased within air pockets both alongside corixids and on their own, as well as Coenagrionidae, Phryganeidae, Leptoceridae, Chironomidae, Physidae, and Planorbidae, which appeared to be encased in solid ice. The ability to overwinter inside ice represents a little understood survival mechanism of aquatic invertebrates in shallow wetlands.

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(Author: Srayko, Stephen H.)

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