Many animals demonstrate site fidelity, which means the tendency to return to certain places. You can think of it as "site faithfulness" [1]. Salmon return to the same stream where their parents and ancestors have gone to breed, elephants in Africa migrate across deserts to return to rivers, humans go on pilgrimages, and birds migrate... If the animals are going on a trip, chances are they are not just wandering and instead are following some inner compass. Think about it this way. If you are traveling across a continent, you probably are going to stop at some rest areas. The best rest areas or breeding destinations or neighborhoods to live in have always been beneficial to you and your ancestors, and so you always go there because you can count on it having the things you are looking for: water, shelter, food, mates, suitable habitat, etc. [5] But what happens if these reliable places start becoming unreliable, or even downright dangerous? One of the most apparent examples i
Despite having sampled aquatic insect larvae prior to this class, I had forgotten just how much I enjoy doing so. There is something so fun about kicking at rocks, scooping up netfuls of insects, digging through the collection, and taking out everything that moves. I honestly think I could do it for hours. Unfortunately, too much collection in the long-term would result in some major impacts on the health of aquatic ecosystems. Not only are many aquatic insect larvae important to their food web, but they are also important indicators of water quality in aquatic systems. The aquatic food web starts as all food webs do, with primary producers. An aquatic food web Photo credit: bio.libretext.org Algae, rooted aquatic plants, and phytoplankton control this trophic level, bringing energy into a usable form for the rest of the ecosystem. These producers are then eaten by primary consumers like aquatic insect larvae, zooplankton, and small fish. Larger fish, amphibians, predaceous insect lar