Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1992

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Plant Sciences

Major Professor

Reid R. Gerhardt

Committee Members

Charles D. Pless, Earnest Bernard

Abstract

Larval black flies were collected monthly from four selected streams in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park between June 1991 and July 1992. One large size (13 m wide Little River), one small (1m wide Tipton Place) and two medium sized streams, one in the sun (6.45 m wide Mill Creek site #1) and one in the shade (6m wide Mill creek site #2) streams and additional creeks in Knox, Monroe, Morgan, Blount counties in eastern Tennessee and Haywood County in western North Carolina will be discussed.

Larvae of Simulium tuberosum (Lundstrom) complex, S. venustum/ verecundum Say, S. quebecense Twinn, S.pamassum Malloch, S. impar Davies, Peterson, & Wood, Prosimulium mixtum Syme & Davies, and Stegoptema mutata Malloch were collected from leaves, sticks and rocks submerged in water from different collection sites. S.tuberosum larvae or pupae were present almost year around, while S. venustum/verecundum were present only in October, November, March, April and May in the four streams and rivers. P. mixtum larvae were collected when the water temperature was lowest in December, January, February,March and a few in April. S. quebecense larvae were rare and collected only in March, April,and May. S. pamassum and S. impar were collected from medium size and small size creeks. Stegoptema mutata was found only from Tipton Place and from an unnamed creek in Morgan County. P. magnum was collected mainly in Knox County. Some rare species such as P. arvum, P. rhyzophorum were collected in Knox County and S. loerchae in Sevier County from an unnamed small creek near Pigeon River.

Chromosome identification was used to separate sibling species of black flies. Our study of chromosome identification indicated that S. tuberosum species complex consisted of FG/CDE, FG, CKL and A, the S. venustum cytospecies was CC, and S. verecundum cytospecies was AA, Stegopterna mutata would found to be diploid cytospecies. Future research will further address species differentiation with chromosome identification.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS