Vattenskalbaggar på Öland och i Sydöstra Småland [Water Beetles on Öland and in Southeastern Småland]

About this book

Language: Swedish with English summary and English translations of figure legends, table headings, and appendices

Southeast Sweden's freshwater fauna is relatively unknown. This book gathers experience and data resulting from more than 25 years of research on the beetle fauna in the waters if the island of Öland and in the southern part of Kalmar County in southern Sweden.

Almost 1000 collection opportunities in 340 places and many hours behind a microscope and in a library are behind this almost 300-page thick book. The 60-page introduction presents and discusses the occurrence patterns and biology of the water beetles, with tables and graphs and numerous references to the subject's technical literature. The species fact sheets that follow report occurrence in maps and photos of 208 species, and describe their ecology, based on the authors' own experiences and scientific literature. In addition, there is an extensive glossary and a locality list.

Short summary in Swedish:
Sydöstra Sveriges sötvattenfauna är relativt okänd. Denna bok samlar erfarenheter och data från drygt 25 års undersökningar av skalbaggsfaunan i vatten på Öland och i södra delen av Kalmar län.

Nästan 1000 insamlingstillfällen på 340 platser och många timmar bakom mikroskop och i bibliotek ligger bakom detta nästan 300 sidor tjocka bokverk. Den inledande textdelens 60 sidor presenterar och diskuterar förekomstmönster och biologi hos vattenbaggarna, med tabeller och grafer och talrika referenser till ämnets facklitteratur. Artfaktabladen som följer redovisar förekomst i kartor och foton av 208 arter, samt beskriver deras ekologi, utifrån författarnas egna erfarenheter och vetenskaplig litteratur. Dessutom finns en omfattande ordlista och en lokallista.


Extended summary:

Southeastern Sweden's freshwater fauna, including the water beetles, is relatively unknown. In this book are presented finding data for water beetles collected by Joja Geijer during the last 25 years on Öland, as well as on the Småland mainland, mainly within a radius of about thirty miles (50 km) around Kalmar. Collection took place with a water net of type "GB net" with 1 mm mesh width. Processing and analysis of data, as well as text writing, were performed together with freshwater ecologist Jan Herrmann. The aim is to obtain a better depiction of which species of water beetles occur in Southeastern Sweden, their habitat, dispersal and distribution, phenology (seasonal variation) and other ecological traits. The result is based on almost 1000 collecting events, in addition supplemented with other people's data.

The aquatic habitats that have been visited are ponds, bogs (on mainland, with peat moss Sphagnum), marshes (on Öland, mostly dominated by sedge Carex spp.) and other types of wetlands, alder marshes, rivers, streams, ditches and pans (Sw. "vät”), as well as shores around lakes and by the Baltic Sea. Many of these shallow aquatic environments dry out most summers, especially on Öland. The ponds are of many different types; from large and deep gravel, clay or peat extractions, via crayfish and irrigation ponds to small shallow game ponds.

More than 200 species are treated in each species fact sheet and in the approximately 60-page text section, incl. three tables and five figures, in addition some appendices, of which two large ones, are not in print but can be obtained as digital files. An extensive bibliography is also included, as well as a detailed glossary. The texts provide many comparisons with other people's data within and outside Sweden. This material should be possible to be useful for nature conservation work at the County Administrative Board and the municipalities, and could be the starting point for more studies by people who are interested in water beetles, both amateurs as well as consultants and researchers.

The introductory chapter 1 provides a detailed background to the work, as well as we solved the necessary balancing between the fascination of species collecting and the desire for a “semiscientific” treatment and production of data has been. It must be emphasized, however, that the collecting at an early stage led to ecological issues, see last in the introduction.

In the following two chapters, 2 and 3, is described the general qualities of the studied areas, as well as a detailed description of the collecting method and the subsequent processing of data in terms of species and numbers, where there is also a list of all figures, tables and appendices.

The results chapter (4) consists of 10 sections, all with "discussion-like" comments. The sections deal in turn: 1) Found species, with comments for the "more interesting ones", usually Öland and Småland treated separately, but also comparisons between them; 2) Expected species, i. e. those that should be able to be found, perhaps depending on the ongoing dispersal; 3) Phenology, i. e. seasonal variation of species occurrence; 4) Life cycles; 5) The size of the species and its significance; 6) Rare / common species; 7) Accompanying/co-existing species, i. e. which species are (more) often found together; 8) Flight ability of the species; 9) Pioneer species, i. e. those that come first to a newly established water, and those that follow later; 10) The pans (small shallow waterbodies that dry up each year) on Öland´s Alvar, a comparison with Bruce's studies in the 50's.

The discussion chapter, 5, in a slightly broader approach, compares conditions, phenomena and patterns and the resulting species occurrence on Öland with that in Småland, often based on species' habitat preference. Not least are treated temporary versus permanent water, and also colonization processes, incl. small waters created by man.

Finally, in chapter 6, are presented final comments on water beetles and their environments, mainly different forms of small waters, and the value of such water bodies. This chapter concludes with the "call" for consideration briefly described as follows:

The value of the water beetles' different aquatic environments cannot be overemphasized, not only for the beetles, but for a good number of other animals and plants, but also often for the area's hydrology, as well as our aesthetic and emotional experience of the landscape. The treated types of water bodies, often rather small in area, have often been considered to be "uninteresting" and to be of little disadvantage if they are spoiled, expanded, overgrown or filled up. There is reason to work locally to ensure that municipalities, county administrative boards and other authorities, as well as landowners and other conservationists, more actively realize the value of these water bodies, and contribute to that there will be more of them in the landscape, even in urban environments.

We hope, and believe, that this book can be of both benefit and inspiration to anyone who for various reasons wants to better understand the water beetles' lives and their environments, i. e. their ecology. It is therefore the authors' hope that readers will find the content valuable and useful, to the benefit to our water beetles.

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