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Presented at the NABS Annual meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2002
in Systematics and Taxonomy
REMARKABLE MAYFLY (EPHEMEROPTERA) DIVERSITY IN A LOWLAND TROPICAL FOREST OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA.
M. Sartori1, P. Derleth2, and J.-L. Gattolliat1. 1Museum of Zoology, P.O. Box 448, CH-1000 Lausanne 17, Switzerland, 2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DGR-GECOS, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
With an area of 736,000 km2, Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world. Under the Equator, with important altitudinal gradient, its hydrographic network is highly diversified. Surprisingly, Borneo has received little attention from a mayfly point of view. Here, we report some data about mayflies from an 85 km2 concession in East Kalimantan (Indonesia) located between 100 and 300 m. a.s.l. in a Dipterocarpaceae primary forest. In the 3rd- and 4th- order streams of this small area more than 40 mayfly genera have been collected. They belong to the following families (by decreasing biodiversity order): Baetidae (12), Leptophlebiidae (7), Caenidae (6), Heptageniidae (5), Ephemerellidae (2), Potamanthidae (2), Teloganodidae (2), Isonychiidae (1), Neoephemeridae (1), Teloganellidae (1), Polymitarcyidae (1) and Prosopistomatidae (1). The latter family is recorded for the first time in Borneo. At least 10 taxa have not been assigned to known genera, especially within Baetidae and Caenidae. This incredible mayfly diversity is among the highest ever reported so far for an area of less than 10 x 10 km. These preliminary results stress, if necessary, the unique value of primary rain forests in our understanding of global biodiversity.
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