Aquatic Insects – a tremendous potential for research on diversification

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/earth_climate/ecology/~4/43ZvPp29_-s

Inland waters cover less than 1% of Earth’s surface yet harbor 10% of all known animal species, 60% of them being aquatic insects. Nearly 100,000 species from 12 orders spend one or more life stages in freshwater. Still today, little is known on how this remarkable diversity arose. Scientists of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin therefore investigated the potential of aquatic insects for research on diversification. The results have now been published in the journal Annual Review of Entomology.Freshwaters cover less than 1% of Earth’s surface, but harbour 10% of all animal species. Six out of ten of currently known species are insects. In a recently published review an international team of researchers from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), the Biodiversity Center in Leiden, and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin analyzed how studying the vast diversity of aquatic insects may contribute to a better understanding of diversification processes.”Analyzing the reasons behind the disproportionately high degree of aquatic insect diversity relative to the little area covered by freshwaters may help us to better understand species diversification,” specifies Dr. Steffen Pauls, leader of a junior research group at the BiK-F and one of the authors of the review.All aquatic insect groups are the result of the invasion of freshwaters by terrestrial groups: “Although belonging to only 12 orders, aquatic insects may represent more than 50 separate invasions,” explains co-author Dr. Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden. The ecology and habitat preferences of many aquatic insect groups have been intensively studied, due to their roles as disease vectors or bioindicators for water quality. …


Read More: Aquatic Insects – a tremendous potential for research on diversification

#Alternative-Medicine, #Climate, #Ecology, #Freshwater, #Inland, #Inlandfisheries, #King, #Leibniz, #Leibnizinstitute, #Major, #Research, #Science