UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Author: search.filters.author.Culler, Lauren ElizabethSubject: search.filters.subject.macroinvertebrates

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    Macroinvertebrate predators and their role in shaping freshwater communities in constructed wetlands
    (2008-07-29) Culler, Lauren Elizabeth; Lamp, William O; Entomology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The recent increase in the number of wetland construction projects has led to numerous studies investigating the response of the macroinvertebrate community in wetlands. Little is known, however, about the factors structuring these communities and how predation may shape community development. Here, I analyze two years of macroinvertebrate community data collected from 9 constructed wetlands at the Jackson Lane Preserve on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Results suggest that abiotic factors may be less important than previously thought in structuring the macroinvertebrate community, and biotic factors such as predation may be more important. I then investigate the role of two larval dytiscid beetles in structuring the primary consumer community. These predators exert strong pressure on the community and, therefore, I conclude that predation is an important factor shaping freshwater communities in constructed wetlands. I offer several suggestions for wetland management with the goal of constructing wetlands with high ecological value.