''Leptophlebia marginata'', the sepia dun, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

mayfly Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the orde ...

in the family

Leptophlebiidae Leptophlebiidae is a family belonging to the Ephemeropterans that are commonly known as the prong-gilled mayflies or leptophlebiids. It is the only family in the superfamily Leptophlebioidea. There are around 131 genera and 640 described specie ...

. It is native to Europe and North America where it is distributed widely near lakes, ponds and slow-moving streams. The larvae, which are known as

nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

, are aquatic.

Distribution and habitat

''Leptophlebia marginata'' occurs in the

holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

region, in Europe and North America, including both temperate and Arctic habitats. It is associated with the edges of lakes and ponds, and the backwaters of slow-moving rivers and streams.

Ecology

Adult ''Leptophlebia marginata'' emerge from the aquatic nymph's final

moult In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...

during daytime in early summer. The final

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ...

nymph crawls to the surface of the water, or climbs onto an emergent plant stem, a stick or a rock, its skin splits and it emerges as a winged adult. The males fly in swarms during the day. Fertilized females have about 1200 eggs and fly over the water, dipping the tips of their abdomens in the water to lay small batches of eggs, or landing briefly on the surface to deposit their eggs. When they finish laying, they are exhausted and soon die. The eggs hatch into aquatic nymphs which live on or in the sediment at the bottom of shallow water and climb about on submerged plants. They feed on

detritus In biology, detritus () is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts comm ...

, sifting organic particles from the mud. Their period of development lasts for nearly a year by which time they are ready to transform into adults. There is a single generation each year. ''Leptophlebia marginata'' can act as an alternate host for the parasitic

nematode The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant- parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a bro ...

Cystidicoloides tenuissima ''Cystidicoloides tenuissima'' is a species of nematodes in the order Spirurida and family Cystidicolidae. It is a parasite of salmonid fish (salmon, trout and their allies) in the northern hemisphere and has mayflies as the alternate host. E ...

'' which infects salmonid fish (

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

and

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

) and is found in their stomachs. The mayfly nymph feeds on the eggs of the nematode, and if the nymph is eaten by a fish of the salmonid family, then the fish becomes infected.

Research

Tests were undertaken on the effects of pollutants and acidic conditions on this mayfly. The nymphs were little affected by low pH values and bio-accumulated

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Li ...

with little apparent adverse effect, but emergence was noticeably reduced. In a separate experiment, increasing levels of iron at low and normal pH levels caused the nymphs to stop feeding and become constipated, but few died except at low pH and high levels of iron. When returned to normal conditions, the nymphs resumed feeding and growth.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3230083 Leptophlebiidae Insects of Europe Insects of North America Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Insects described in 1767