Vertical redistribution of drifting benthic invertebrates in the Kedrovaya River, Primorsky Region of Russia

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In accordance of the Creative Commons Attribution License all Copyrights © 2014 are reserved for SCIRP and the owner of the intellectual property Maxim V. Astakhov, Victor V. Bogatov. All Copyright © 2014 are guarded by law and by SCIRP as a guardian. The vertical distribution of morphologically dif-ferent drifting invertebrates (mayfly and dipteran larvae) in a small salmon river was studied. Drifting invertebrates were caught with the As-takhov’s sampler equipped with three driftnets placed one above another. The average annual drift rate in different levels of a water column was practically the same, while the drift density decreased from the bottom to the surface. Over the course of 24 hours, the drifting organisms did not show clear preference for a particular water layer. Invertebrates were constantly redi-stributed between the upper and lower levels at approximately 30- 90 min intervals. This redi-stribution appears to be linked to the fact that invertebrates of the same taxa, which entered into water column from different bottom sites become active at different times