Master's Student University of Alberta St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
In an increasingly urbanized world, finding ways to integrate biodiversity and wildlife-friendly spaces into our cities is essential. In Edmonton, Alberta, stormwater management ponds are constructed for flood management and pollution mitigation purposes. But occasionally, these ponds become important habitat for urban wildlife and invertebrates, even when they have not been constructed for such a purpose. There are 266 stormwater management ponds in Edmonton. Of these facilities, some provide habitat for a greater diversity and richness of benthic invertebrate species than others. Research on stormwater ponds has suggested that pond age, connectivity, fish presence, landscape variables, vegetation communities, and water conductivity all significantly influence these communities, however the nature of that influence varies from study to study. While most studies have looked at the impact of stormwater pond characteristics on benthic invertebrates as a whole, few have targeted specific invertebrate groups and examined these impacts on a species level. Our study aims to investigate the different landscape and habitat characteristics that influence Corixidae (Hemiptera) communities within these ponds. By comparing these urban communities with communities collected across Alberta in unmanaged, non-urban wetlands we aim to determine whether Edmonton’s managed wetlands have incidentally replicated unmanaged wetlands elsewhere in the province. To do this, we placed 1L activity traps and did dip net samples in 34 stormwater ponds of varying construction types across Edmonton from July to August. Corixidae specimens will be identified to species. The results will be analyzed for species diversity, richness, and abundance.
