The diversity of Brachycera (Diptera) was studied in an old growth beech-sugar maple forest at Mont St. Hilaire, Quebec. Sampling was carried out weekly from early May to late September 2001 using a malaise trap, pan traps, a newly designed trunk trap and sweep netting. Almost 10,000 specimens from 45 families and over 334 species were collected. The most diverse families were Empididae (43 species), Tachinidae (39 species), Syrphidae (35 species) and Dolichopodidae (24 species). Collecting techniques were compared, with particular reference to the trunk trap designed for this study. NMDS ordination showed that a different Diptera assemblage was collected by each method. The greatest number of species was collected using the malaise trap; however, 21 species were collected only in trunk traps. Some of the most abundant species from trunk traps were collected rarely, or not at all, using other methods. These are species which are often considered rare in forests because they are infrequently collected using traditional techniques.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.78359 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Fast, Eleanor |
| Contributors | Wheeler, T. A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Natural Resource Sciences.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001985730, proquestno: AAIMQ88194, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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