Freshwater Invertebrate Survey of Suffolk

Invertebrate Data Section

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Course Dates

2012

10th - 13th April
Four day Aquatic Inverts Course

28th - 30th September
Freshwater Snails Weekend

Aquatic Invertebrate Course Information



Welcome to the pages of my site for students on one of my Flatford courses.
If you have not applied for a course and would like information on costs etc.
please click on the Field Studies Council logo to the left.





These pages give students some internet links which may provide useful background information prior to attending one of my courses. Extra information on the course, which is not in the FSC leaflet, is also available here. More content may be added in due course so please revisit from time to time.

Having attended one of the courses you will receive a password to visit the download section where you can obtain useful documentation and software for future studies.

Feel free to email any enquiries to:


Please choose between the section links below

Click here for more information on courses this year

The following links provide a great deal of information about various specific groups of invertebrates living in aquatic habitats:

The Water Flea Interest Group website:
An introduction toall things about Water Fleas and identification.
http://www.cladocera.org.uk

The Virtual Pond Dip:
An introduction to microscopic pond life
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ponddip/index.html

The Freshwater Life site:
This site is a growing resource includes some downloadable keys
http://www.freshwaterlife.org/index.jsp

The Freshwater Biological Association site:
Worth looking at for the range of keys available, although a full set would be very expensive.
http://www.fba.org.uk/

The Mayfly Recording Scheme website:
Information on studying Mayflies and descriptions of the 51 species found in the UK
http://www.ephemeroptera.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

CAMSTARS ~ The River Flies Recording Schemes website:

Information and contact details for Mayflies, Stoneflies & Caddis recording
http://www.brc.ac.uk/schemes/CAMSTARS/homepage.htm

Heteroptera News

.. has information on aquatic bugs in several downloadable magazines
http://www.hetnews.org.uk

COURSES IN 2012

This year I am running one four day general course on the identification of freshwater invertebrates and one weekend course on identifying Freshwater Molluscs:

Four day Aquatic Invertebrates Course
Tuesday 10 April - Friday 13 April

This is the full four day course I have been running for several years now. Field trips to local rivers and to local ponds allow students to collect inverts for later work in the lab at Flatford. If you bring collecting tubes you can of course leave with the start of your own voucher collection.
A very comprehensive selection of both current and also older keys can be used by students to practise, with individual help, the identication of their catch. This has proved very useful to many students in gaining familiarity with a number of groups and often has led to students deciding, on completion of the course, to specialise in one or more favoured groups. You are welcome to concentrate on your own particular favourite group or get a general overview of freshwater life.
By the last day the group will have amassed quite a comprehensive species list from the sites visited and we then cover several of the techniques which have been devised to analyse freshwater sites. This allows us to obtain several metrics or measurements of the water quality and the conservation value of the sites. Students will also leave with a full trial copy of my shareware software called SAFIS which automates all these metrics, requiring only that the species list is pasted in before a full report is output.

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Identifying Freshwater Snails Weekend
Friday 28 September - Sunday 30 September

This course deals with the univalve freshwater molluscs, the bivalves being omitted due to the time constraints imposed in a weekend.
Although there will be limited time to go out and collect snails a good selection of preserved specimens from a variety of sites will be available to ensure you are able to examine and identify a wide range of the available species, and it is also possible for you to bring along specimens of your own which you have collected local to your own home.
The area around Flatford is rich in molluscs and during last year’s course well over half of the British freshwater fauna was found during field excursions. This allowed course participants ample opportunity to examine living material and observe behaviour. Up to date keys and reference data on species habitat and conservation importance will be provided for future use. This course concentrates on the use of the snail shells and shape differences as identification features. Prior knowledge of terminology is not required.
At present the only easily available key to freshwater snails is a limited number of facsimile editions of the Freshwater Biological Association's original 1977 publication. Whilst a new, simplified key is in preparation from the FSC there is no publication date as yet. Students on this course will receive free copies of an unpublished but updated key with species new to Britain and species name changes added as well as habitat and conservation information.

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