The twenty-four larvae of
Chironomus sp. treated in this paper were collected in August 1967 on the bottom from 2m to 11m deep of Lake Yunoko.
The dominant species of algae determined in the digestive tracts of the larvae, together with the individual number of
Chironomus from which they were found, are shown as follows :
Asterionella formosa 16,
Fragilaria pinnata 14,
Melosira italica f.
curvata 14,
Fragilaria spp., 9,
Fragilaria crotonensis 7,
Fragilaria construes 7,
Melosira sp., 1,
Pinnularia gibba 1. of
Chironomus sp., respectively. All these species except
Pinnularia gibba are regarded as planktonic species.
Comparing the contents of digestive tracts by means of the values of C'
2, the individuals of
Chironomus obtained from the same place were often more similar than those collected from the other places, while the values of C'
2 between the all individuals were shown as 0.53 which indicated unnoticeable similarity.
Though the dominant species of the micro-algae in the upper layers of the bottom of the lake showed a simple appearance in composition, those found in the digestive tracts of
Chironomus sp. seemed to be complex. This matter of fact was considered to be due to the following reason.
If the micro-algae except
Fragilaria pinnata formed patches and their diameters were so small as only a part of which was possible to be contained in the quadrat (25cm
2), the micro-algae forming patches were averaged. They would be likely to induce such a consequence that small number of algal individuals became distributed on an average in a case of using quantitative method with a quadrat (25cm
2) adopted to investigate the micro-algae in the upper layers of the bottom.
In fact, it is extremely probable that
Chironomus takes the micro-algae forming patches. In this case, the dominant species might appear to be different between the micro-algae observed in the upper layers of the bottom of the lake and those contained in the digestive tracts of
Chironomus larvae.
On the other hand, it would be possible to consider that the larvae of
Chironomus take the micro-algae not only on the surface layer but also in the deeper layers of the lake-bottom. In such circumstances, there might be a difference in regard to the dominant species of algae between in digestive tracts and those found on the surface layer of the bottom.
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