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Diving beetle assemblages of flooded wetlands in relation to time, wetland type and Bti-based mosquito control

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Abstract

We investigated the abundance and taxonomic composition of the aquatic predatory insect fauna, with focus on adult diving beetles (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae), in eight temporary flooded wet meadows and two alder swamps in the River Dalälven floodplains, central Sweden from 2002 to 2006. Diving beetles are generalist predators and often abundant in various waters, including temporary wetlands. In the River Dalälven floodplains, recurrent floods induce massive hatching of flood-water mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), which constitute a superabundant patchy and irregular food resource for aquatic predatory insects. Our aims were (1) to characterize the assemblage of adult diving beetles occurring in the wetlands during floods in relation to time and wetland type and (2) to evaluate the effect on the aquatic predator assemblage of strongly reducing the abundance of a potential prey, flood-water mosquito larvae with Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti) during floods. We found diving beetles to be the dominating aquatic predatory insect taxa in all 10 wetlands. There was a difference in Dytiscidae species richness but not in diversity between wet meadows and alder swamps after rarefaction. The cluster analysis based on dytiscid species and abundances showed very high similarities between the wetlands. The variance component analysis was unable to distinguish any factor that could explain more than 7.4% of the variation in the dytiscid species assemblages. The only effect of Bti-treatment against flood-water mosquito larvae, potential food for the predatory dytiscids, was a slight increase in abundance of the medium-sized dytiscid species. Our results are in accordance with previous studies, suggesting that irregular and recurrent flood dynamic structure the dytiscid fauna more than food limitations and environmental factors.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciated the grants from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to J.O.L, and the invaluable help from Martina Schäfer and Yngve Brodin for comments on the manuscript, Örjan Östman for discussions about statistics and rarefaction analyses, Anna Hagelin, Björn Forsberg, Gustav Carlander, Anna-Sara Liman assisted with field sampling and identification, and Gunnar Sjödin with identification of dytiscid species.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolution/Population Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 D, 752 36, Uppsala, Sweden

    Thomas Z. Persson Vinnersten & Jan O. Lundström

  2. Swedish Biological Mosquito Control Project, Nedre Dalälvens Utvecklings AB, Gysinge, Sweden

    Thomas Z. Persson Vinnersten & Jan O. Lundström

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolution/Animal Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Erik Petersson

  4. Institute for Freshwater Research, Swedish Board of Fisheries, Drottningholm, Sweden

    Erik Petersson

  5. Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linkoping, Sweden

    Jan Landin

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  1. Thomas Z. Persson Vinnersten
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  2. Jan O. Lundström
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Correspondence to Thomas Z. Persson Vinnersten.

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Vinnersten, T.Z.P., Lundström, J.O., Petersson, E. et al. Diving beetle assemblages of flooded wetlands in relation to time, wetland type and Bti-based mosquito control. Hydrobiologia 635, 189–203 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9911-9

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