An Individual-Based Model (IBM) was developed by employing natural and toxic survival rates of individuals to elucidate the community responses of benthic macroinvertebrates to anthropogenic disturbance in the streams. Experimental models (doseresponse and relative sensitivity) and mathematical models (power law and negative exponential distribution) were applied to determinate the individual survival rates due to acute toxicity in stressful conditions. A power law was additionally used to present the natural survival rate. Life events, covering movement, exposure to contaminants, death and reproduction, were simulated in the IBM at the individual level in small (1 m) and short (1 week) scales to produce species abundance distributions (SADs) at the community level in large (5 km) and long (1~2 years) scales. Consequently, the SADs, such as geometric series, log-series, and log-normal distribution, were accordingly observed at severely (Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP⁄10), intermediately (BMWP⁄40) and weakly (BMWP›50) polluted sites. The results from a power law and negative exponential distribution were suitably fitted to the field data across the different levels of pollution, according to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The IBMs incorporating natural and toxic survival rates in individuals were useful for presenting community responses to disturbances and could be utilized as an integrative tool to elucidate community establishment processes in benthic macroinvertebrates in the streams.

Chironomus riparius, a non-biting midge (Chironomidae, Diptera), is extensively used in aquatic ecotoxicological studies for assessing acute and sub-lethal toxicities of contaminated sediments and for water monitoring due to their widespread occurrence, short life-cycle, easy to be reared in the laboratory, physiological tolerance to various environmental conditions. To date, the endpoints used for monitoring such effects in C. riparius are based on a small number of specific biomarkers and measurements of organism level effects, such as survival and reproduction. Genomic-based techniques based on expression analysis of genes are important tools for investigating molecular level effects caused by exposure to environmental pollutants, which will provide the ability to detect mechanisms of action and subsequent adverse cellular level effects and associated with different types of toxicity. As a pre-requisite for genomic based ecotoxicological studies knowledge on the C. riparius transcriptome is important but despite its ecotoxicological importance, no large scale transcriptome analysis of C. riparius has been done so far. Therefore, to gain a better understanding of C. riparius transcriptome, we recently developed Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) sequencing project on C. riparius larvae using 454 pyrosequencing. Sequencing runs, using normalized cDNA collections from fourth instar larvae, yielded 20,020 expressed sequence tags, which were assembled into 8,565 contigs and 11,455 singletons. Sequence analysis was performed by BlastX search against the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) nucleotide (nr) and uniprot protein database. Based on the gene ontology classifications, 24% (E-value ≤1-5) of the sequences had known gene functions, 24% had unknown functions and 52% of sequences did not match any known sequences in the existing database. Sequence comparison revealed 81% of the genes have homologous genes among other insects belonging to the order Diptera providing tools for comparative genome analyses. Targeted searches using these annotations identified genes associated with essential metabolic pathways, signaling pathways, detoxification of toxic metabolites and stress response genes of ecotoxicological interest. The results obtained from this study would eventually make ecotoxicogenomics possible in a truly environmentally relevant species, C. riparius. Various C. riparius ecotoxicity studies using stress response genes developed from 454 sequencing will be presented in the conference.

Male cicadas produced species-specific calling songs to attract conspecific receptive females. Male cicadas typically occupy tree trunks or tree branches during calling song production. We studied calling site preference in four species of cicada: Cryptotympana dubia, Meimuna opalifera, Oncotympana fuscata, and Meimuna mongolica. Several males were observed to sing together in a tree in C. dubia, but males of other species tended to sing singly in trees. There were also cases in which two or three individuals of different species sang together in a tree. Species differed significantly in height of and distance to trunk from calling site. Both tree height and tree crown were significant factors for calling site preference. The height of calling site was the highest in C. dubia, followed by M. opalifera, M. mongolica, and O. fuscata. The distance to trunk from calling site in M. opalifera was the farthest and was significantly different from those of other species. Males of other species tended to sing close to tree trunks. Males of M. opalifera were mobile when they produced calling songs, whereas males of other species were stationary. That is, males of M. opalifera sang only for short periods of time and moved around adjacent trees. Segregation of calling sites suggests that these four cicada species occupy different sections of trees, thereby avoiding competition for calling sites.