Poster Details
NEOPHYLAX RICKERI CASE AND LARVAE MEASUREMENTS USED TO OBSERVE CASE BUILDING STRATEGIES WITHIN ONE STREAM
Members of Trichoptera are case-building insects whose larvae live in aquatic habitats with different available building materials as well as flow conditions that may affect case construction. We studied the cases of Neophylax rickeri using measurements of the case (length, width, average large rock size, and dimensions of the ballast stones) and the associated larvae using an ocular micrometer or digitally on scanned images of caddisflies using ImageJ. We plotted the relationship between case length and body length determined instar groups. A comparison between case length and average rock length revealed that the largest cases included the largest ballast stones on the case, widest at the anterior. The case widths of the middle region and the average width of the caddisfly were positively correlated. We also compared the size and the shape of ballast stones from cases in the same stream but in different months to determine if caddisflies altered their building strategy in response to seasonal hydrological changes in the stream.
Patina Mendez (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Berkeley, patina.mendez@berkeley.edu;
Jessica Garcia (Primary Presenter/Author), UC Berkeley, jgarciareyes@berkeley.edu;