Mayfly Breeding

[Jason]

I ran across this interesting article out of Britain about a guy that wanted to put 2 million mayflies back into one of the local rivers to help boost the population of a dwindling mayfly specie. Is this a normal thing? Has this been done in the states? Why not try this for the MP?'

http://www.millennium-debate.org/ind5may03.htm

[Doug S.]

LMAO.....very funny

[Jason]

Ha ha. Thanks for hi-jacking my thread again guys.

[grouser]

I think it would be a cool idea to restock a dead river with new bug life. I used to fish a stream below a resevoir that got poisioned with rotenone and I don't think it ever had the hatches it did before everything that lived in the river died. At least the Middle Provo didn't have all the bugs in the system destroyed, I've walked down a stream that has recently been killed with rotenone and couldn't find any evidence of life.
I've got an aquarium if anyone can get some info about how to go about it.

[Caddfly]

I've had caddises in my aquarium before. I'm sure they would've matured, but my catfish destoyed them. Are mayflies more adaptable or are they weaker than caddises?

Breeding mayflies would be good to know, for I want make a large aquarium tank with game species with current in it. First I'd have this insects, then MICE!!! yeah! (I guess that last part should be in the Goals thread)

[Cary]

The fucundity of aquatic insects is enormous. If they don't get killed of by environmental factors, they'll be there.

[jdubya]

Actually what I'd like to do is get some drakes into the green. They will get there eventually (as long as the dam holds) but it would be cool to speed it up. It is already an artificial river system (for trout) so why not disneyland it up a bit with some size 12 bugs!! enuf of them damn midges....

[Tightlinez]

while the idea of designer rivers where you can plan for the future aquatic life and hatches sounds fun, doesnt it kind of defeat the point of fishing different waters? There wouldnt be any excitement to fishing anywhere else if you could just insure your favorite hatches on the closest waters that would support them. Sounds kind of boring.

[grouser]

Tightlinez brings up a good debate. Personally I don't think an extra hatch on a particular water would take away anything from the fishing experience, it would just present more options for fishing new patterns and trying new techniques. For me it wouldn't make it more boring.
Should we introduce new bugs to a particular river they historically haven't been in? That's a tough one. You could argue that it would represent a more complete ecosystem or you could argue don't mess with the river, let nature take its course. The new insect might push out other bugs that have thrived for years. I think I would choose not to introduce new bugs, if natural migration brings them to a river, then it happens.
Jason seems to be suggesting helping mayfly's make a quicker comeback on a damged or repaired stretch of river. I think this would be cool.

[Cary]

Actually what I'd like to do is get some drakes into the green. They will get there eventually (as long as the dam holds) but it would be cool to speed it up. It is already an artificial river system (for trout) so why not disneyland it up a bit with some size 12 bugs!! enuf of them damn midges....


fugitaboutit

It'l never happen. Too many scuds. Scuds mess up the neighborhood for mayflaies. Want lotsa mayflies? Get rid of the scuds.

[jdubya]

Should we introduce new bugs to a particular river they historically haven't been in?

while i would agree with that sentiment for the yellowstone or any other natural, free flowing river, the Green below Flaming is as artificial as they get, so I wouldn't lose sleep over tricking it up a bit.

maybe we could poison the scuds, .........

[cardiac]

fugitaboutit

It'l never happen. Too many scuds. Scuds mess up the neighborhood for mayflaies. Want lotsa mayflies? Get rid of the scuds.

Maybe we can get PBH and W2U to get the DWR to open that section to C&K for scuds. (:(0) Doh!

[Lonnie]

There are several things that determine the macro-invertebrate community for a given body of water. These factors are not unlike what fish need. The most important factors are 1. Water quality and 2. Habitat. How these effect the bugs in the system are pretty obvious for most of us. The invertebrates in a system are quite often a much better indicator than normal water quality "grab" samples. The bugs are there all the time. Most of the streams and rivers (in urban, sub-urban and agricultural areas) have had a least some degree of sediment impairment. So what the original macro-invertebrate community was is generally unknown.

Not only are species are being eliminated from these systems, new species also have the potential to colonize rivers. There are equations to describe this, but I'll spare everyone those. Basically the number of species in a system can be described as the immigration rate minus the extinction rate, with a variety of factors effecting these rates such as the size of the species pool feeding the system, the area of the new system, the number of available niches, and the distance between the systems, etc. When we take a sample from a river, we must remember that the populations and community structure is always in flux. This change can even be seasonal due to hatches.

SO, planting new bugs into a system isn't as much an issue as one might think. I don't think it would really matter. Given enough time, it's quite possible that winged insects, like mayflies, caddis and stoneflies COULD reach every aquatic system out there. However, wether or not sufficient environmental conditions exist to maintain that population in the new system is unknown. As I'm sure all of you know, most aquatic insects have some degree of tolerance to pollution. This also effects the observed community. My opinion on most aquatic insects is if they aren't there, there is something that prevents them from being there. Quite often this is an environmental factor.

I worked up a simple graph that is often used as a guide when determining what type of water quality problems one has based on the structure of the macro-invertebrate sampled. This is best done over several sampling periods to account for seasonality.
http://home.comcast.net/~shullln/bugs.GIF

I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep and worked all day at the resort. Needless to say I'm pretty bushed (mentally and physically). So I'm sorry if haven't been as detailed as normal. If you want to know more about colonization of systems, do a google search for island, biogeography, equations, E.O. Wilson.

[Utah DaveII]

What they hell are you doing up at 4:34 AM? Shouldn't you be skiing or something?

On a side note I once read where there were 18 species of mayflies in the green before the dam, and there are 4 now. I guess going from chocolate soup to crystal clear makes a difference.

[Lonnie]

Hey Dave,

Check your clock settings.....
http://www.utahonthefly.com/forums/showthread.php?p=62563#post62563

Anyway, this proves exactly my point. Even thought the previous conditions were what we generally think of as less than optimum for mayflies (warm, silty, fluctuating flows), There were still more species then than there are now. This get back to the imigration rate vs the extinction rate. We changed the habitat conditions and increased the (local) extinction rate. I imigane that the imigration rate stayed constant. The species found "Old" green river had thousands of years to colonize and adapt to it's previous conditions. If we wait thousands of more years, we should slowly see an increase in the species that move in and take hold. Or we could speed it up as the original artice suggested.

The other thing that worries my, or at least I call into question about homeboys idea with planting mayflies is, why did they disapear in the first place. Degraded WQ, change in habitat ? Something. It's like stocking fish, until you address the problems causing the fish not to grow like they use too, it's most likely pointless....

Geeze, I feel like a wet blanket.
Lonnie

[Hopper]

If the Green had a population of big stones that hatched coinciding with the cicada hatch, that would have to give unbelievable topwater fishing! Throw in green drakes a month later, wow! Of course, you wouldn't be able to run a boat down the river anymore because of the crowds.

Hopper