EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGYENTOMOLOGY ISSN (online): 1802-8829 Eur. J. Entomol. 114: 147–159, 2017 http://www.eje.cz doi: 10.14411/eje.2017.020 REVIEW The diversity of feeding habits recorded for water boatmen (Heteroptera: Corixoidea) world-wide with implications for evaluating information on the diet of aquatic insects CHRISTIAN W. HÄDICKE 1, *, DÁVID RÉDEI 2, 3 and PETR KMENT 4 1 University of Rostock, Institute of Biosciences, Chair of Zoology, Universitätsplatz 2, 18055 Rostock, Germany 2 Institute of Entomology, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Weijin Rd. 94, 300071 Tianjin, China; e-mail:
[email protected] 3 Hungarian Natural History Museum, Department of Zoology, 1088 Budapest, Baross u. 13, Hungary 4 National Museum, Department of Entomology, Cirkusová 1740, CZ-193 00 Praha 9 – Horní Počernice, Czech Republic; e-mail:
[email protected] Key words. Heteroptera, Corixoidea, aquatic invertebrates, food webs, diet, predation, feeding habits Abstract. Food webs are of crucial importance for understanding any ecosystem. The accuracy of food web and ecosystem models rests on the reliability of the information on the feeding habits of the species involved. Water boatmen (Corixoidea) is the most diverse superfamily of water bugs (Heteroptera: Nepomorpha), frequently the most abundant group of insects in a variety of freshwater habitats worldwide. In spite of their high biomass, the importance of water boatmen in aquatic ecosystems is fre- quently underestimated. The diet and feeding habits of Corixoidea are unclear as published data are frequently contradictory. We summarise information on the feeding habits of this taxon, which exemplify the diffi culties in evaluating published data on feeding habits in an invertebrate taxon.