The occurrence and abundance of invertebrates in aquatic environments.

Abstract

The great majority of fresh-water habitats can be divided into two very general types, lentic and lotic (Pennak). A lentic habitat, one of standing water, includes such places as lakes, ponds, beach pools, swamps and bogs. Lotic refers to running streams, rivers and springs. All of these environments have the same limiting factors which will affect distribution of individual groups, or often individual species. The major factors are temperature, light intensity, current, oxygen and carbon dioxide content, and the amount of dissovled salts (Odum). The purpose of this paper is to explain the occurrence of certain collected invertebrates in various bodies of water on the basis of the environmental factors which allow for their presence or absence from the fauna.