Academy of Natural Sciences

Techniques for Collecting Water Beetles from Lentic Habitats

Author(s): William L. Hilsenhoff and Bryn H. Tracy
Source: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. 137, No. 1,
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Classification, Phylogeny, and Natural
History of Hydradephaga (1985), pp. 8-11
Published by: Academy of Natural Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4064875
Accessed: 03-12-2015 07:50 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4064875?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Academy of Natural Sciences is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 140.112.154.105 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 07:50:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 137: 8-11, 1985

Techniques for Collecting Water Beetles from Lentic Habitats

WILLIAM L. HILSENHOFF

BRYN H. TRACY'
Departmentof Entomology
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53706

ABSTRACT.-TO qualitativelyascertainthe beetle faunaof lentic habitats,samplescollected with a flat-bottomed

aquatic net should be supplementedby samples collected by traps. A wide variety of aquatic traps employ
invertedcones in cylinders, bottles, or boxes, and their effectiveness can sometimes be enhancedwith baits or
the additionof a light. A quantitativemethodis describedthatuses a largecylinderto enclose a measuredareato
which an irritantis addedto force beetles to the surfacewhere they are easily collected. [Coleoptera,collecting
techniques, lentic habitats, nets, pyrethrin,traps, water beetles]

Most aquaticbeetles are collected from lentic
habitatswith an aquaticinsect net. Nets with a
flat bottomwork best, and rectangular,triangu-
lar or D-frame designs can be purchasedfrom
biological supply houses or made as described
by Spangler(1981). Tea strainersand minnow
seins have been used in special circumstances,
but strainersare effective only for smaller bee-
tles in shallow waterand seins can be used only
to collect largerbeetles in areas relatively free
of debris and vegetation. In using an aquatic
net, thrust it forward into the water with an
overhand motion and pull it back along the
bottom. This method is probably best for
capturinglarger beetles trying to swim away,
but it may allow capturedbeetles to escape from
the net when subsequent thrusts are made. A
second method is to push the net forwardalong
the bottom; it is most effective in ponds with
little vegetation where the net can be pushed
over a large portion of the pond. A third, and
perhapsmost used alternative, is to sweep the
net across the bottom. Since most beetles dive
into the substratewhen disturbed,it is advanta-
geous to work the net back and forth over the
same area and to work it into the substrate.
'Present address: Carolina Power and Light Company,
ShearonHarrisEnergyand EnvironmentalCenter,Route 1,
Box 327, New Hill, NC 27562.
8
Once a sample has been collected, beetles
must be removed from the debris. A Berlese
funnel works well, but it is inconvenient for
field use. We place samples on a ?/2-inch
(13 mm) or ?/4-inch(6 mm) mesh screen over a
large white enameled pan. This is far superior
to placing the sampleon the hood of a car or on
a sheet of canvas. Beetles crawl down through
the debris and fall into the pan where they can
be readily capturedwith a curved forceps or an
aspirator. It takes about 10 minutes for most
beetles to drop into the pan, but additional
beetles will crawl out of the debris for 30
minutesor more. If the airtemperatureis warm,
beetles may fly out of the pan, but this can be
prevented by placing water in the pan. The
watercontainingbeetles is then pouredthrough
a strainer and the beetles are emptied into a
collection jar. We use 8-ounce (237 ml) jars
half-filled with 70% ethanol that contains 3%
glycerine, and maintain our collection in this
preservative.
There are problems with relying completely
on net samples when studying the beetle fauna
of lentic habitats.Some ponds, especially those
with large amountsof duckweed(Lemna), con-
tain so much debris that the net becomes clog-
ged after sampling only a very small area.
Swamps with a Sphagnum mat also present
samplingproblemsbecause often they have too

This content downloaded from 140.112.154.105 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 07:50:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
TECHNIQUES FOR COLLECTING WATER BEETLES FROM LENTIC HABITATS
little waterto be effectively sampledwith a net.
But perhapsthe greatest problem is that larger,
faster-swimming beetles are adept at avoiding
capture, causing net samples to have dis-
proportionatelyhigh numbers of smaller bee-
tles.
Aquatic insect traps provide a means for
alleviating these problems, but their use has not
been widely documented, especially in North
American literature. The first description of
such a trapwas by Needham (1924). His "bee-
tle trap" was a wide-mouth bottle with a trun-
cated cone of celluloid held in its mouth by
rubber bands. The trap was filled with water
and placed horizontallyin the bank just below
the surface of the water. Beetles swam through
the cone, became trapped,and died because of
a lack of oxygen. Husbands (1960) used a
similar trap, but oriented it vertically at the
surfaceof the waterwhere it would float when a
small amount of air was left in the jar. Beetles
swimming to the surface to replenish their air
supply were trappedin the jar after swimming
through the funnel. Another type of trap was
describedby Kellen (1953) and used to monitor
insects inhabiting sewage oxidation ponds. It
was 8 inches (20.3 cm) squareat each end and
18 inches (45.7 cm) long, with invertedscreen
funnels at each end. The entiretrapwas covered
with 1/s-inch(3 mm) mesh screen. When sub-
merged, the beetles and bugs thatswam into the
trapdied from lack of oxygen before they could
find their way out. Traps similarto this, but of
more elaborate construction and with finer
mesh screening, were used by James and Red-
ner (1965) to sample predaceous beetles in
mosquito breeding ponds. Brancucci (1978)
and others used similar traps, while Nilsson
(1978) devised a trap screened at one end and
with long wing-like rectangles of Plexiglas
forming a V-notch opening at the otherend. For
smaller beetles Brancucci (1978) used aquatic
pit-fall traps excavated into the bottom of a
pond. These consisted of a clear funnel attached
to the mouth of a clear plastic container and
placed inside a metal cyclinder from which all
substratehad been removed. Beetles diving to
This content downloaded from 140.112.154.105 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 07:50:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
9
the bottom would pass through the funnel and
become trapped.
Husbands(1967) found that the effectiveness
of his vertically-orientedtrap(1960) was great-
ly enhanced by the addition of a light source.
Earlier,a horizontallyorientedunderwaterlight
trap was described by Hungerford, Spangler,
and Walker(1955). It had an invertedfunnel at
one end and a light source at the other. Subse-
quently underwaterlight traps similar to these
were decribedby Washinoand Hokama(1968),
Carlson (1971), Espinosa and Clark (1972),
Engelmann (1973), Apperson and Yows
(1976), and Aiken (1979). Light trapstendedto
be most effective in deeper water or in areas
with little vegetation, because vegetation re-
stricted light penetration.
We began using underwatertraps to collect
beetles in 1976. Our traps are 43 cm long,
13 cm diameter cylinders of galvanized win-
dow screen (1.1 x 1.5 mm mesh openings)
with an invertedscreen funnel at each end. The
funnels have a cloth sleeve fastened to the
cylinder with a large rubberband. Most of our
studies have been carried out in McKenna
Pond, a shallow 0.8 hectare pond with dense
vegetation around the margins and open water
in the middle. For 6 years we intensively sam-
pled the beetle fauna here with these traps and
with a D-frame aquatic net, and occasionally
with other devices as well. We experimented
with other trap designs, except underwater
light traps. Our original trap design proved as
effective as any we tried, and because it was
inexpensive and easy to make, we continuedto
use it. Its only serious drawbackwas the mesh
size, which was too large to capturevery small
beetles such as Liodessus, Uvarus, andDesmo-
pachria, but these small beetles were readily
capturedwith a net. The trapswere effective in
capturing larvae and adults of all the other
dytiscid genera that inhabited the pond, and
larvaeand adultsof Haliplidae.They also effec-
tively capturedlarvae and adults of Hydrophi-
lus, Hydrochara, Tropisternus, Berosus, and
Hydrobius, but did not capture hydrophilid
genera that crawl on vegetation rather than
10
swim. Gyrinidae adults and larvae were never
capturedby the traps from any pond in which
they were placed, but adultGyrinidaewere seen
only infrequentlyat McKenna Pond and other
ponds we sampled with traps.
Comparisonsof 4 net samples with 16 trap
samples in McKennaPond showed that the two
sampling methods complimented each other
very well. On most sampling dates, fewer than
25% of the species of Dytiscidae, Hydrophili-
dae, and Haliplidaewere found in both net and
trap samples, with about equal numbers of
species being capturedexclusively by net or by
trap. In early April three times as many beetles
were capturedby the 16 traps as by the 4 net
samples, in early June twice as many were
captured, and in mid-October about equal
numbers were capturedby nets and traps. In
autumnbeetles become less active and trapsare
much less effective. In early spring, beetles
were capturedby trapsplaced underthe ice; net
samples could not be collected at that time of
the year. Trapsamples always containedgreater
numbersof the largerDytiscidae and Hydrophi-
lidae, while small Dytiscidae and crawling
Hydrophilidaepredominatedin the net samples.
Johnson (1972) noted that Cybister fim-
briolatus is a scavengerthat is readily attracted
to pieces of liver, and he captured many C.
fimbriolatusadultsin trapsbaitedwith liver and
raw fish. We also noticed that in a large
aquarium most species of Hydrophilidaeand
Dytiscidae were attractedby pieces of meat or
dry dog food. In three replicated tests in
McKennaPond, trapswere baited with dry dog
food, fish heads, or pieces of liver, and num-
bers of beetles were compared with those in
unbaited traps, but there was no significant
differencedue to baiting. We believe thatthis is
because there are no currents in this weed-
choked pond to carry odors from the baits. In
our aquarum,water is circulatedby an airstone
and odors rapidlyreach the beetles. Since most
beetles are found among the vegetation, there
appearsto be little or no advantagein baiting
traps placed there.
Beetle traps are effective in capturingother
This content downloaded from 140.112.154.105 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 07:50:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
WILLIAM L. HILSENHOFF AND BRYN H. TRACY
animals such as tadpoles, salamanders, fish,
and a variety of aquatic Hemiptera, Odonata,
Diptera, and Ephemeroptera. Some of these
predators,especially fish, will eat beetles and
reduce the effectiveness of the traps. However,
the larger beetles are usually able to escape
predation, and it is these beetles that are most
difficult to capturewith a net. We conclude that
traps compliment net samples and should be
exploited when qualitativelyassessing the bee-
tle fauna of lentic habitats.
Neither nets nor traps can be relied upon to
quantitatively sample beetle populations. Re-
cently we developed a techniquethatwe believe
to be quantitative.A metal cylinder60 cm high
and 50.6 cm in diameter, attachedto a remov-
able pole, is held above the water and suddenly
droppedinto it to enclose a 0.2 m2areaof lentic
habitat. An amount of pyrethrincalculated to
produce a concentrationof 10 ppm in the en-
closed water is added and thoroughly mixed
with the water. This chemical acts as an irritant,
causing beetles to rise to the surfacewhere they
can be captured easily with a tea strainer or
small aquarium net. At water temperatures
above 25?C this botanical insecticide rapidly
detoxifies so that when the cylinder is removed
there is no effect on adjacent habitat.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Dr. Ralph Gundersen, St. Cloud
Minnesota State University, for suggesting the
use of hardwarecloth over an enamel pan as a
means for separatingbeetles from debris. We
also thank Dr. Robert Roughley, University of
Manitoba,for providingus with much valuable
informationon beetle traps. This researchwas
supported by the College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences and the GraduateSchool, Univer-
sity of Wisconsin-Madison.
LITERATURE CITED
AIKEN,R. B. 1979. A size selective underwaterlight trap.
Hydrobiologia 65: 65-68.
TECHNIQUES FOR COLLECTING WATER BEETLES FROM LENTIC HABITATS 11

APPERSON, C. S. AND D. G. Yows. 1976. A light trap for
collecting aquaticorganisms. MosquitoNews 36: 205-
206.
BRANCUCCI, M. 1978. Methodes de capturede Coleopteres
aquatiques. Entomologische Gesellschaft Basel 28:
7-12.
CARLSON, D. 1971. A method for sampling larval and
emerging insects using an aquatic black light trap.
CanadianEntomologist 103: 1365-1369.
ENGELMANN, H. D. 1973. Eine Lichtfalle fur den In-
sektenfang unter Wasser. Dresden Entomologische
AbhandlungenMuseum fur Tierkunde39: 243-246.
EsPINOSA, L. R. AND W. E. CLARK. 1972. A polypropylene
light trapfor aquaticinvertebrates.CaliforniaFish and
Game 58: 149-152.
HUNGERFORD, H. B., P. J. SPANGLER, AND N. A. WALKER.
1955. Subaquatic light traps for insects and other
animal oranisms. Transactions Kansas Academy of
Science 58: 387-407.
HUSBANDS, R. C. 1960. Advances in populationmeasure-
ment. Proceedings California Mosquito Control
Association 28: 85-86.
. 1967. A subsurfacelight trapfor samplingaquatic
insect poulations. CaliforniaVector Views 14: 81-82.
JAMES, H. G. AND R. L. REDNER. 1965. An aquatictrapfor
samplingmosquito predators.Mosquito News 25: 35-
37.
JOHNSON, G. H. 1972. Flight behavior of the predaceous
diving beetle, Cybisterfimbriolatusfimbriolatus(Say)
(Coleoptera: Dytiscidae). The Coleopterists Bulletin
26: 23-24.
KELLEN, W. R. 1953. A quantitativesampler for aquatic
insects. Journal of Economic Entomology 46: 913-
914.
NEEDHAM, J. G. 1924. Observationof the life of the ponds
at the head of LagunaCanyon. Journalof Entomology
and Zoology (PomonaCollege, Claremont,California)
16: 1-12.
NILSSON, A. N. 1978. Dykare fran en oversvimmad stran-
dang vid Vindelalven (Col., Dytiscidae). Entomolo-
gisk Tidskrift 99: 85-86.
SPANGLER, P. J. 1981. A durable, lightweight net and a
manual aspirator for collecting aquatic organisms.
Pan-Pacific Entomologist 57: 245-250.
WASHINO, R. K. AND Y. HOKAMA. 1968. Quantitative
samplingof aquaticinsects in a shallow-waterhabitat.
Annals of the Entomological Society of America 61:
785-786.

This content downloaded from 140.112.154.105 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 07:50:55 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions