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Research Article

Declines in an abundant aquatic insect, the burrowing mayfly, across major North American waterways

View ORCID ProfilePhillip M. Stepanian, Sally A. Entrekin, View ORCID ProfileCharlotte E. Wainwright, View ORCID ProfileDjordje Mirkovic, View ORCID ProfileJennifer L. Tank, and View ORCID ProfileJeffrey F. Kelly
PNAS first published January 21, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913598117
Phillip M. Stepanian
aDepartment of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;bCorix Plains Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;bCorix Plains Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;
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  • ORCID record for Phillip M. Stepanian
  • For correspondence: p.step@nd.edu
Sally A. Entrekin
dDepartment of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060;
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Charlotte E. Wainwright
cDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556;
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  • ORCID record for Charlotte E. Wainwright
Djordje Mirkovic
eCooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73072;
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Jennifer L. Tank
fDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556
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Jeffrey F. Kelly
aDepartment of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;bCorix Plains Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019;
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  • ORCID record for Jeffrey F. Kelly
  1. Edited by David W. Schindler, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and approved December 12, 2019 (received for review August 6, 2019)

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Significance

The annual appearance of massive mayfly swarms is a source of public fascination and spectacular natural phenomenon that plays a key role in regional food webs. Alarming reports of insect declines motivate efforts to uncover long-term and large-scale invertebrate population trends. Monitoring aquatic insect abundance across ecosystems continues to be logistically infeasible, leaving the vulnerability of these communities to intensifying anthropogenic impacts unknown. We apply radar remote sensing to quantify aquatic insect abundance at scales that have been previously impossible, revealing persistent declines in biomass flux from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. As ecological indicators, these losses may signal deterioration in water quality and, if current population trends continue, could cascade to widespread disappearance from some of North America’s largest waterways.

Abstract

Seasonal animal movement among disparate habitats is a fundamental mechanism by which energy, nutrients, and biomass are transported across ecotones. A dramatic example of such exchange is the annual emergence of mayfly swarms from freshwater benthic habitats, but their characterization at macroscales has remained impossible. We analyzed radar observations of mayfly emergence flights to quantify long-term changes in annual biomass transport along the Upper Mississippi River and Western Lake Erie Basin. A single emergence event can produce 87.9 billion mayflies, releasing 3,078.6 tons of biomass into the airspace over several hours, but in recent years, production across both waterways has declined by over 50%. As a primary prey source in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, these declines will impact higher trophic levels and environmental nutrient cycling.

  • bioflow
  • ecotone
  • emergence
  • Ephemeroptera
  • radar entomology

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: p.step{at}nd.edu.
  • Author contributions: P.M.S. and C.E.W. designed research; P.M.S. performed research; D.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; P.M.S. analyzed data; and P.M.S., S.A.E., C.E.W., J.L.T., and J.F.K. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no competing interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1913598117/-/DCSupplemental.

Published under the PNAS license.

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Declines in an abundant aquatic insect, the burrowing mayfly, across major North American waterways
Phillip M. Stepanian, Sally A. Entrekin, Charlotte E. Wainwright, Djordje Mirkovic, Jennifer L. Tank, Jeffrey F. Kelly
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2020, 201913598; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1913598117

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Declines in an abundant aquatic insect, the burrowing mayfly, across major North American waterways
Phillip M. Stepanian, Sally A. Entrekin, Charlotte E. Wainwright, Djordje Mirkovic, Jennifer L. Tank, Jeffrey F. Kelly
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2020, 201913598; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1913598117
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