Project directors

Verena Lubini (Zurich), lubini[at]sunrise.ch 
Pascal Stucki (Neuchâtel), pascal.stucki[at]netaquarius.ch

Coordination

Yves Gonseth, yves.gonseth[at]unine.ch

Description

The objective of this project is up-date the aquatic organism red List (TURNER, WÜTRICH & RUETSCHI IN DUELLI 1994) and that of the Ephemeroptera (SARTORI, LANDOLT & ZURWERRA IN DUELLI 1994) and to publish new lists for Plecoptera and Trichoptera.

The choice of prospected sites aims at covering the principal types of natural habitats available, regardless whether they are lotic or lentic, in order to delimit their current fauna. As the number of collaborators likely to take part in the project is limited, a special effort is foreseen to acquire information already available, in particular for the habitats fairly or strongly artificially altered or deteriorated. The entire data should make it possible to extrapolate the potential distribution of the species and to thus, evaluate their degree of threat according to the quality observed or deduced from the Swiss hydrographic network.

Data source

The project benefits from all data collected within the framework of the publication Atlas of Molluscs (TURNER & Al 1998) and that of the Ephemeroptera (SARTORI & LANDOLT 1999) of Switzerland, as well as all the data published for Plecoptera and Trichoptera, for which the reference collections are available.

The data was supplemented by the revision of the Plecoptera and Trichoptera collections of the Museums of Switzerland as well as by the recent data from voluntary collaborators or from the cantonal services ensuring a follow-up of the aquatic fauna of their regions (for the four groups).

This faunal data is supplemented by all the evaluated biotic indices and all the eco-morphological information collected in the previously studied Swiss lakes and rivers.

Preliminary processing

This phase took place in 2001.It particularly allowed:

• to test a field method adapted to qualitative sampling of each of the populations from the four groups retained (Molluscs, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera) by only one person in each selected site;
• to prospect the environments still largely under sampled in Switzerland for the four groups: three cold lakes, eight springs, three cold rivers of average size and a marsh.
• to compliment the inventory of the Trichoptera present Switzerland by investigating about thirty high and low-marshes of national importance to the research of the species strictly or preferentially paludean.

The following points were underlined by the directors of the project in their 2001 report:

• the field method tested is very effective and very profitable: in a given site, one specialist can easily sample the four groups the same day without his effectiveness for sampling one or the other groups being affected, under the condition that he is compelled to prospect all of the present microhabitats;
• from a technical point of view: the Japanese umbrella must be preferred over the entomological net or the crop net for the capture of adult plecoptera; for the capture of adult trichoptera the use of luminous traps is essential;
• from a faunal point of view, the lists of species drawn up with the material collected in the visited sites ontain a high percentage of rare species or at least rarely found in Switzerland.

Operational phase

2002 - 2006. This phase is in progress and should finish within the planned deadline.

Downloadable documents

Fieldwork methods