Skip to main content

Mecopteran (Mecoptera: Bittacidae, Meropeidae, Panorpidae) Flight Periods, Sex Ratios, and Habitat Frequencies in a United States Mid-Atlantic Freshwater Tidal Marsh, Low Forest, and Their Ecotone

Article

Overview

Authors

  • Barrows, Edward M. and Flint, Oliver S., Jr.

Abstract

  • As part of a long-term arthropod biodiversity study, we operated six Malaise traps in Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve (DMWP), Virginia from April 1998 through December 1999 and obtained 104 adult mecopterans in five species. They were present in samples from late May through early November. Samples indicate that as a group, the mecopterans were more abundant in the forest than in the marsh and the forest-marsh ecotone, and the mecopterans had a female-biased sex ratio. Two of the trapped species are uncommon or of limited distribution in North America. Malaise traps can be used efficiently to survey and monitor certain mecopteran species in DMWP and similar places. To understand the mecopteran biodiversity and phenology in the Preserve more completely, it would be worthwhile to survey the entire Preserve for at least 10 yr with all appropriate sampling methods.

Published In

Publication Date

  • 2009

Authors

Identity

Digital Object Identifier (doi)

Additional Document Info

Start Page

  • 223

End Page

  • 230

Volume

  • 82

Issue

  • 3