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.ukThe 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.
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.
