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Diversity of Wetland Non-Biting Midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) and Their Responses to Environmental Factors in Alberta

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Diversity of Wetland Non-Biting Midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) and Their Responses to Environmental Factors in Alberta Diversity of wetland non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) and their responses to environmental factors in Alberta by Qi Liu A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science In Ecology Department of Biological Sciences University of Alberta © Qi Liu, 2016 Abstract Wetlands provide a wide range of services, including improving water quality, providing habitats for wildlife, and storing floodwaters. In Alberta, wetlands cover about 21% of the landscape of the province. In Alberta, as elsewhere, wetlands have suffered from human activities and many have declined in water quality and value as habitat. Non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) often dominate aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages, both in number and diversity. They have been successfully used as indicators to assess water quality and human disturbance in streams. In contrast, the ecology of chironomids and value as indicators in wetlands are less explored. In this thesis, I use samples and environmental data from the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) to first explore what taxa of chironomids are present in Albertan wetlands. I created an atlas of all 40 chironomid genera identified, including a detailed glossary describing taxonomically important features of chironomids and a description of morphological and ecological features of each genus. This will provide baseline information and a good taxonomic tool for future chironomid studies in Alberta. Then I use multi- and univariate statistical approaches to assess the relationships between various aspects of chironomid community (i.e. chironomid assemblage structure, Shannon–Wiener index, total genus-richness, total abundance, and abundance of each genus) and both their associated habitats and measures of ‘human footprint’ (i.e., land with altered natural cover by human activities). Although several environmental factors and human footprint were identified as significantly correlated with chironomid variables, the overall relationships were weak (i.e. low variance explained). The weak correlation between chironomids and environmental variables could be due to the lack of important but unmeasured environmental variables, insufficient taxonomic resolution (i.e., responses may be clearer at species level), and/or that chironomids capable of II living in wetlands in Alberta being robust generalists that are more tolerant of environmental variation than are chironomids associated with flowing water. III Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Heather Proctor for her continuous support and encouragement of my study and research. I would also like to thank my co-supervisor Rolf Vinebrooke and supervisory committee member Rob Hinchliffe for their advice and patience to me, especially during the difficult time of my thesis writing. Thanks to Cindy Paszkowski for being arms-length examiner and Stan Boutin for chairing the exam. Special thanks to Zhuoyan Song and Rob Hinchliffe: Zhuoyan helped me with all the statistical analysis and Rob offers tremendous help during the process of chironomid identification. I could not have completed this project without their help. Also thanks to Meagan Tobin who assisted me in the field and mounted and identified some of my chironomids. I am grateful to those ABMI personnel who sampled the wetlands, collected or summarized environment and human-footprint data. And lastly, thanks to my parents for their unconditional support. This project was funded by Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute and Alberta Conservation Association. IV Table of Contents Chapter 1 : General Introduction ................................................................................... 1 1.1 What is biodiversity? ................................................................................................ 1 1.2. Why is biodiversity important? ................................................................................ 1 1.3. Threats to Biodiversity ............................................................................................. 2 1.4 Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) .................................................. 5 1.5 Midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) .............................................................................. 8 1.6 Thesis objectives and outline .................................................................................. 13 Literature Cited ............................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 2 : Atlas of 4th instar larvae of common genera of nonbiting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) recorded from Albertan wetlands ....................................... 17 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 17 2.2 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 20 2.3 Taxonomic review .................................................................................................. 26 2.3.1 Subfamily Chironominae ................................................................................. 27 2.3.2 Subfamily Diamesinae ..................................................................................... 46 2.3.3 Subfamily Orthocladiinae ................................................................................ 47 2.3.4 Subfamily Tanypodinae .................................................................................... 56 Literature Cited ............................................................................................................. 62 Chapter 3 : Correlations between Spatial, Environmental and Human Footprint Factors and the Assemblage Structure of Chironomid Midges in Wetlands in Alberta ............................................................................................................................. 63 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 63 3.2 Method .................................................................................................................... 65 3.2.1 Study Sites ........................................................................................................ 65 3.2.2 Potential Explanatory Variables ...................................................................... 66 3.2.4 Data Analysis ................................................................................................... 71 3.3 Results ..................................................................................................................... 73 3.3.1 General Environmental Pattern ....................................................................... 73 3.3.2. General chironomid assemblage pattern ........................................................ 74 3.3.3. Variation partitioning ..................................................................................... 75 3.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 76 3.4.1 General environmental and chironomid assemblage pattern .......................... 76 3.4.2 Variance partitioning ....................................................................................... 77 3.5 Conclusion and future study ................................................................................... 86 Literature Cited ............................................................................................................. 88 Chapter 4 : Responses of chironomid genus richness, chironomid diversity, total abundance and abundance of common chironomid genera to environmental factors in Albertan wetlands ..................................................................................................... 106 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 106 4.2 Method .................................................................................................................. 108 4.2.1 Study Sites ...................................................................................................... 108 4.2.2 Potential Explanatory Variables .................................................................... 109 4.2.3 Aquatic invertebrates ..................................................................................... 111 4.2.4 Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 113 4.3 Results ................................................................................................................... 116 4.3.1 Relationship Between Diversity and Abundance Metrics and Environmental Variables ................................................................................................................. 116 4.3.2 Relationship Between Individual Chironomid Genera and Environmental Variables ................................................................................................................. 117 4.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 118 4.4.1 Effect of human footprint and surrounding vegetation .................................. 118 4.4.2 Effect of other environmental factors ...........................................................
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