Abstract
Aquatic insects are species of significant importance to water bodies because they serve various purposes including nutrient cycling, vectors of pathogens and bioindicators of water quality. Analyzing their community structure is a veritable tool in studies of biodiversity and quality of limnetic ecosystems. Therefore, we investigaTed the health status of a pond in Benin City, Nigeria using insect’s abundance, composition, distribution and physicochemical parameters of the waterbody. Insects were sampled using sweep nets and identified to the species level while water samples were collected and analyzed using in-situ and ex-situ methods to determine the physicochemical properties in three sampling stations. The results of the physicochemical assessment of the water indicated that conditions did not differ widely between sites (P > 0.05) except for total alkalinity, and the recorded values were well within the ambient FMEnv permissible limits for surface water except for dissolved oxygen,turbidity and phosphate. A total of 10 insect taxa, comprising of 103 individuals in 2 orders were recorded in the study and among the orders, Hemiptera comprised of 7 species and Coleoptera comprised of 3 species. Majority of the insect fauna found in this study are typically found in similar water bodies in the tropics. However, the obsereved insect community structure revealed a relatively low taxa richness with a dominance of pollution-resistant species which suggests a moderately polluted condition of the waterbody. 
 Keywords: Aquatic insects, bioindicators, biodiversity, water quality, pond.
Highlights
Aquatic insects are species of significant importance to water bodies because they serve various purposes including nutrient cycling, vectors of pathogens and bioindicators of water quality
Analysis of insect community structure in littoral vegetations is indispensable for studies of the biodiversity of the limnetic ecosystem and it forms a veritable tool for assessing water quality
Turbidity was generally high with values ranging between 25 to 390 NTU except for the month of August with low turbidity values ranging from 12 to 14 NTU that may be due to the August break which resulted in reduced organic load into the ponds (Offem et al, 2011; Eliku and Leta, 2018)
Summary
Aquatic insects are species of significant importance to water bodies because they serve various purposes including nutrient cycling, vectors of pathogens and bioindicators of water quality. Analyzing their community structure is a veritable tool in studies of biodiversity and quality of limnetic ecosystems. The air-filled tracheal system is capable of functioning only when the spiracles are in contact with air To overcome this challenge, aquatic insects have become adapted to their environment through a number of processes such as the use of simple diffusion over a relatively thin integument, breathing from a plastron or physical gill, extraction of oxygen from water using a plastron, storage of oxygen in haemoglobin molecules in hemolymph, and taking oxygen from the surface via breathing tubes known as siphons (Mill, 1974, Pennak, 1978, Barnes, 1980, Graham, 1990, Klowden, 2008). This study was undertaken with an objective to assess the composition and relative abundance of the different insect groups associated with the littoral vegetation of a pond
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