Matching thirty years of ecosystem monitoring with a high resolution microfossil record

1. Monitoring of the ecosystem of Lake Mývatn, Iceland, since 1975 has revealed extreme fluctuations in important food web components, such as chironomids and cladocerans, with amplitudes of several orders of magnitude and a period of 5–8 years. This study uses sediment cores from the lake to examine if the food web fluctuations appear in the microfossil record of the sediment. 2. Dating was achieved by means of a combination of ¹³⁷Cs and volcanic tephra and was fine‐tuned by wiggle‐matching of chironomid microfossil and monitoring data. 3. Cladocera exuviae and chironomid egg capsules in the uppermost 34 cm of sediment were compared with the monitoring record that consisted of 30 years of window trap catches of flying chironomids and a 16‐year record of chydorid Cladocera caught in activity traps. 4. The observed chironomid and cladoceran population fluctuations were reflected in the sediment record of chironomid eggs and of the exuviae of three of seven cladocerans: Alonella nana, Alona rectangula and Eurycercus lamellatus, which also had the most extreme fluctuations in the monitoring data (3–4 orders of magnitude). Chydorus sphaericus, and to some extent Alona quadrangularis and Acroperus harpae, showed regular fluctuations in the core that the monitoring did not reveal. Density of subfossil chironomid eggs correlated positively with that of larval head capsules but not with other microfossils. 5. This study shows a reasonably good correspondence between the fossil records of chironomids and cladocerans on the one hand and biomonitoring data on the other. The results pave the way for an extension of the food web history to much earlier time intervals of the ecosystem, allowing the study of long‐term variation in the food web dynamics, including the impact of climatic variation and other external forcing. The results also indicate the usefulness of chironomid egg capsules in palaeolimnological studies.     

A new window trap used in the assessment of the flight periods of Chironomidae and Simuliidae (Diptera)

SUMMARY. 1. A window trap is described which has been found useful in the study of the fight periodicity of chironomids and simuliids. the trap is simple to construct and can be operated in high winds.
2. Window traps were operated in 1977 and 1478 at Lake Myvatn. Iceland, when thirty-nine chironomid species and two simuliid species were caught. Most of the chironomids had two peaks in flight activity per year. e.g. Eukiefferietla minor, Cricotftpus tibialis. Pogonocladius consohrinus, Tanytaraus gracilentus and Micropsectra airofasciata. Chironomus islandicus and Heterotrissocladius grimshawi had one peak in activity in all traps. The flight activity of Prodadius istandicus, Orthocladius oblidens and Micropsectra Undrothi varied greatly between traps and years. Simulium vittatum had two peaks in flight activity, corresponding to the two generations developing per year. Variation in trap catches of .S. vittatum reflected populalion changes measured independently in a study of larval population dynamic