Life history of Ephemera wuchowensis Hsu, 1937 (Ephemeroptera: Ephemeridae) in a northern subtropical stream in Central China

Abstract

Ephemera wuchowensis Hsu, 1937 is a commonly encountered and widely distributed burrowing mayfly species in China, but its biological traits are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the life history of E. wuchowensis using the size-frequency method at three sites along a creek in Central China. Monthly samples of larvae were taken from January to December 2017. The life history of E. wuchowensis was found to be univoltine in this northern subtropical region, and there were no significant differences among the sites based on the size-frequency histograms. Unlike the emergence of congeneric species, which inhabit southern subtropical monsoon streams and are showed to be highly synchronised with a relatively short flight period, the adults of E. wuchowensis has a long emergence period from April to September with two distinct peaks of emergence: the first from April to June, and the second from August to September.

Keywords:

• Ephemeroptera
• Ephemeridae
• life cycle
• northern subtropical region
• Central China

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and editor in chief for useful suggestions and corrections that improved the quality of the manuscript. Mr Jacob B. Kraus (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) improved language in a late version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by National Key R&D Program of China [Grant 2017YFC0506406], National S&T Basic Work of China [Grant 2014FY120200], National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant U1602262, 31470510, 31760126, 31960255] and Strategic Pilot Science and Technology Projects (A) Category, Chinese Academy of Science [Grant XDA23040103].