HR: 1330h
AN: NB33P-12    [Abstracts]
TI: Aquatic Communities Of Temporary Streams Of The Guanacaste Conservation Area In Northwest Costa Rica
AU: * Flowers, R
EM: rflowers7@earthlink.net
AF: Center for Biological Control, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL 32307 United States
AU: Chavarria Diaz, M M
EM: multihc@racsa.co.cr
AF: Programa de Investigacion, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Liberia, Gte Costa Rica
AB: Santa Rosa National Park in northwestern Costa Rica is a seasonally dry region with little or no rain for 5-6 months of the year. Streams here are intermittent, with moderate or rapid flows for 2 months or less during the first downpours of the rainy season. Thereafter the streams become a connected series of pools during the remainder of the rainy season, with most pools disappearing during the dry months. The serpentine area of the Santa Elena peninsula is one of the driest habitats in Santa Rosa; nevertheless the temporary streams in this area have a diverse aquatic invertebrate community dominated by Ephemeroptera and Coleoptera. The mayfly genera Caenis (Caenidae), Ulmeritoides, Choroterpes, and Tikuna (Leptophlebiidae: Ephemeroptera) are abundant in these streams but the leptophlebiids are rare elsewhere in Costa Rica. Ulmeritoides appears to be a specialist in lentic microhabitats in lowland streams along both coasts of Costa Rica. Among tropical intermittent streams studied so far, the streams in Santa Elena have an unusually abundant and diverse Ephemeroptera fauna.
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly