Odonata drift: a reassessment

Robert B Dubois

doi:10.1080/13887890.2020.1818639

Abstract

More than 400 scientific journal articles and gray literature reports that addressed macroinvertebrate drift were reviewed and 63 articles were found that reported on the natural drift of Odonata a...

Highlights

Many riverine aquatic macroinvertebrates move downstream with the current in sufficient numbers, and with enough frequency, that this drift is generally understood to be an ecologically significant phenomenon (Allan & Castillo, 2007; Benke, Hunter, & Parrish, 1986; Müller, 1974; Waters, 1972)
To construct a list of species documented in natural drift (Table 1) I did not include reviews, studies that focused on a specified taxon or group of taxa that did not include odonates, studies done in unnatural settings, or studies that sampled drift as an escape response from pollution, insecticides, or lampricide treatments, unless odonates were taken in pretreatment samples (e.g. DuBois & Plaster, 1993; Kolton, MacMahon, Jeffrey, & Beamish, 1986)
This review has revealed that many species and genera of Odonata are known to drift, and the list will no doubt continue to grow

Summary

Introduction

Many riverine aquatic macroinvertebrates move downstream with the current in sufficient numbers, and with enough frequency, that this drift is generally understood to be an ecologically significant phenomenon (Allan & Castillo, 2007; Benke, Hunter, & Parrish, 1986; Müller, 1974; Waters, 1972). The ecological mechanisms for drifting behavior are incompletely known, undoubtedly complex, and to some extent controversial (Koetsier & Bryan, 1995; Müller, 1995). Drift seems to function as a density dependent mechanism whereby excess production is released from a river reach (Dimond, 1967; Fenoglio, Bo, Gallina, & Cucco, 2004; Waters, 1965), but in other cases no relation is found between the benthic fauna and the drift (Elliott, 1967; Fleituch, 1985; Koetsier & Bryan, 1996). Odonates are infrequently collected in most drift studies (Müller, 1995), their drift distances are not known, and the reasons for their drift behavior, and the taxa and life stages involved, are not well known

Methods

Results

Conclusion