Seasonal Aquatic Insect Populations in Lyons, CO Anna Eydinova

Hypotheses: Insect populations fluctuate throughout the seasons due to patterned environmental changes. More specifically, insect populations would generally flourish during the winter because the summer would be the mating season seeing as it is warmer and they are able to move around and mate. -Also, predation and such---it’s a vicious cycle.  

Methods The Surber Net The samples are collected in streams Large net with a bottle at the bottom Water direction and pressure shoves the sample material into the bottle Bottle gets brought back to the lab The sample gets ‘scoped, sorted, identified

The Insects copepods, oligochaets, baetids, chironomids, coleoptera

Data in analyzed form: Certain species did not exist during certain months Significant change in population throughout the months Time of year clearly has something to do with the fluctuation of populations. 

Some more analysis

What was gleaned? Seasonality does indeed affect populations in aquatic insects Smaller numbers live in the summer, larger numbers in the winter Some disappear entirely for a month (or more) The why? Do these 6 accurately represent the whole scope of species? (Probably not) What could be done for future studies Conceivable source(s) of error . . . ?

Questions, qualms, comments?