Field Guide to Freshwater Invertebrates of North America

James H. Thorp, D. Christopher Rogers, James H. Thorp, D. Christopher Rogers

• Editorial: Academic Press
• Año: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780123814272
• Categoría: Ciencias biológicas
• Categoría: Ecología

The Field Guide to Freshwater Invertebrates of North America focuses on freshwater invertebrates that can be identified using at most an inexpensive magnifying glass. This Guide will be useful for experienced nature enthusiasts, students doing aquatic field projects, and anglers looking for the best fish bait, lure, or fly. Color photographs and art, as well as the broad geographic coverage, set this guide apart.

• 362 color photographs and detailed descriptions aid in the identification of species
• Introductory chapters instruct the reader on how to use the book, different inland water habitats and basic ecological relationships of freshwater invertebrates
• Broad taxonomic coverage is more comprehensive than any guide currently available

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1 Using This Book Effectively

Aquatic ecosystems contain an amazing diversity of invertebrates. Whether one is exploring a creek or river, a pond or lake, or even more unusual habitats such as vernal pools and water-filled tree holes and depressions in rock outcrops, you are bound to find bugs, wrigglers, rattails, snails, clams, mussels, elktoes, pocketbooks, mud bugs, crawdads, toe biters, hellgrammites, bloodworms, punkies, drakes, bloodworms, and many of varieties of small animals known collectively as invertebrates. This guide is designed to assist you in identifying the small aquatic animals that you may find living in freshwater (nonmarine) habitats.

I Introduction to This Field Guide

A What is the Nature of This Book?

Aquatic ecosystems contain an amazing diversity of invertebrates. Whether one is exploring a creek or river, a pond or lake, or even more unusual habitats such as vernal pools and water-filled tree holes and depressions in rock outcrops, you are bound to find bugs, wrigglers, rattails, snails, clams, mussels, elktoes, pocketbooks, mud bugs, crawdads, toe biters, hellgrammites, bloodworms, punkies, drakes, bloodworms, and many of varieties of small animals known collectively as invertebrates. This guide is designed to assist you in identifying the small aquatic animals that you may find living in freshwater (nonmarine) habitats.

Many of these organisms remain unseen due to their small size and secretive habits or are even ignored because identification is difficult. The invertebrates most commonly noticed are flashy or colorful (some crayfish, mussels, and beetles), good fishing bait (hellgrammites, caddisflies, mayflies), tasty (crayfish, shrimp, crabs), or an occasional painful nuisance now or later (toe biters, creeping water bugs, larval mosquitoes). However, with a little exploring, one can find an incredible array of aquatic invertebrates living under stream rocks, swimming in shallow pools, or hiding among plants in the margins of lakes and rivers.

Very few of our aquatic invertebrates can bite or pinch a human, and none can sting or poison you. Many of our aquatic invertebrates are important indicators of water quality and habitat health. All the water bugs, snails, crayfish, mussels, and worms have important functions in processing organic material, controlling algae, and feeding fish, birds, turtles, otters, and raccoons.

This book is divided into three parts. Part I (Chapters 1 and 2) introduces the organisms, provides information on collecting invertebrates, and describes the process of identifying invertebrates. Chapter 2 includes a key to help you determine which chapter you should read to learn more about a specimen you have collected. Chapter 2 also includes cautionary statements concerning protected species and protected areas where collecting is not allowed without specific permits. While reading these and other chapters, you may come across terms unfamiliar to you because of their scientific nature. To help alleviate some of these problems, we have provided a glossary at the end of this book. Part II (Chapters 3 and 4) is designed to inform the reader about the basic ecology and biology of aquatic invertebrates in general. This information will help in understanding the general importance of these creatures in the larger aquatic ecosystem, as well as where best to look for them, what their requirements for life are, and how they are used as ecological indicators. Finally, in Part III (Chapters 5–27) you can learn more about the diversity, distribution, form and function (including life history), ecology, and behavior of specific groups of invertebrates as well as how and where to collect them and techniques for culturing these organisms. These chapters also include photographs of specific taxa to help you identify the organisms you have collected. Keep in mind, however, that it is beyond the scope of this guide to identify all aquatic invertebrates to species level. The purpose of this guide is to allow the nonspecialist to identify aquatic invertebrates to an introductory level.

B Who Needs This Book?

Anyone who is curious about the animals that live in the creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes, and wetlands of North America will benefit from this book, although it is designed for the nonspecialist. Anglers may find this text particularly useful in identifying the critters that local fish are eating, both to use as bait or, for the fly fishing enthusiast, to identify models for wet flies. Many an angler has caught a fish and opened its stomach to see exactly which bugs the fish were hunting at that time of day.

Students in elementary, high school, and college classes may find this text useful for introductory natural history, entomology, zoology, or ecology lectures, field trips, and class projects involving aquatic ecosystems. Similarly, homeschool families can use this text as part of their curricula. Anyone wanting to learn more details about aquatic invertebrate ecology and biology as well as how to further identify aquatic invertebrates in general are encouraged to consult the most recent edition of Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates (edited by Thorp and Covich in 2010) – the parent text of this guide. For help identifying aquatic insects in particular to much lower taxonomic levels (genus or species), you may wish to consult An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America, edited by, Merritt, Cummins, and Berg (2008).

C What is an Invertebrate?

All living organisms are divided among five groups called kingdoms. These five kingdoms encompass the many species of bacteria (Monera), protozoa (Protista), fungus (Fungi), plants (Plantae), and animals (Animalia). In a very broad sense, animals are divided into two convenient groups: vertebrates and invertebrates. Only members of the former have backbones. Vertebrates are the fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. All other animals are invertebrates; in fact, about 90% of the identified species of organisms on this planet are invertebrates. Some examples of the latter are worms, leeches, snails, clams, insects, spiders, mites, crustaceans, sponges, and moss animals.

D What Organisms are Covered in This Book?

This guide is designed to assist the user in identifying those freshwater aquatic invertebrates that can generally be seen in moderate detail with the naked eye, or at most with a hand lens. This book covers aquatic macro invertebrates and not microinvertebrates. The former are typically defined as invertebrates larger than 2 mm long, while microinvertebrates are of course smaller. Microinvertebrates include animals such as most nematode worms, many flatworms, wheel animals (rotifers), gastrotrichs, and protozoans. All these organisms can only properly be identified using a microscope.

Macroinvertebrates can be identified only into broad categories when using this book alone. Even though some of these animals are very large, the body parts that are needed for species level identification can often only be seen through a microscope and require dissection or special preparation. Moreover, proper identification typically requires a great deal of training and/or many more resources. Again, anyone wanting to identify aquatic invertebrates further than the scope of this guide should consult the most recent edition of Thorp and Covich’s Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates, published by Academic Press (Elsevier).

This field guide is primarily concerned with those creatures living on or below the water surface. However, some insects live in aquatic habitats as larvae or nymphs but migrate to terrestrial habitats as adults. These include dragonflies, mayflies, and some beetles and flies. Only the aquatic stages of those animals are extensively treated here. Similarly, the guide generally does not cover those macroinvertebrates living at the shore line but not in the water proper, such as tiger beetles and many spiders.

II How Invertebrates are Classified

All organisms are placed into an internationally recognized system of classification in order to establish their relationships to each other. The classification system is hierarchical. This means that all the animals are divided into large groups, and then each large group is divided into smaller groups. Those smaller groups are further divided, until each specific kind is in its own category. This hierarchy is as follows, from largest to smallest:

Kingdom
	Phylum
		Class
			Order
				Family
					Genus
						Species

Each of these categories can be further subdivided if needed into “sub” and “super” categories, as in a suborder or a superfamily, but not all categories need this level of specification for all groups. Each category is called a taxon (plural: taxa), which means “name” in Latin. All the categories (taxa) except species are inclusive categories. This means that these taxa are composed of other smaller groups that share similar bodies or body parts. Only the species level category is exclusive.

All invertebrates are in the kingdom Animalia, which contains around 35 phyla (singular: phylum). Each phylum is defined by having a different body plan. For example, all animals with backbones are in the phylum Chordata. All other animal phyla contain invertebrates. Another example is the phylum Arthropoda, which is defined by having a body with a hard exoskeleton and jointed appendages.

To illustrate how organisms are placed into scientific groups, let us pick an organ...