Non-biting chironomid midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) may cause sensitization and allergic reactions in humans and have recently been identified as a potential health problem in Swedish municipal sewage treatment plants. To investigate, on a pilot scale, the allergenic potential of chironomids in sewage workers, all workers (n = 8) at a sewage treatment plant and local controls (n = 16) complete...

In most freshwater ecosystems, aquatic insects are dominant in terms of diversity; however, there is a disproportionately low number of records of alien species when compared to other freshwater organisms. The Chironomidae is one aquatic insect family that includes some examples of alien species around the world. During a study on aquatic insects in Amazonas state (Brazil), we collected specime...

There is a sparsity of long, continuous palaeotemperature records for the last glacial period in central Europe, particularly interval corresponding to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4 and 3. Here we present new, ca. 50-thousand year (ka)-long chironomid record from Füramoos, southern Germany, covering MIS 5a 3 that use examine lake development then quantitatively reconstruct mean July air tempera...

In the study of chironomids in Armenia several species of Orthocladiinae subfamily of Cricotopus genus, Diamesinae subfamily of Diamesa genus, and Chironominae subfamily of Chironomus genus, have been identified. In the Cricotopus genus two sibling species were found, not distinguishable by larval morphological features, but clearly distinct cytogenetically. Keywords—Armenia, Chironomidae, kary...

Benthic macroinvertebrate communities of Lake Tanganyika tributaries in pristine, forested, and impacted, deforested, watersheds were examined. Samples were collected using a Surber-sampler, and identified under a dissecting microscope. Family biotic indices (FBI), percent of Ephemeroptera/Plecoptera/Trichoptera (%EPT), relative Chironomid abundance (RCA), and taxa richness of five impacted str...

The insecticidal potential of benzoylphenylurea (BPU) insect growth regulators (IGRs) has been studied since the early 1970s (Maas et al. 1981). A number of these IGRs have been evaluated in the laboratory and under field conditions against dipterous insects of medical and economic importance, particularly mosquitoes and chironomid midges (Ali and Lord 1980, Mulla and Darwazeh 1979). Among the ...

The classical multiplicative (Hirzebruch) genera of manifolds have the wonderful property which is called rigidity. Rigidity of a genus h means that if a compact connected Lie group G acts on a manifold X, then the equivariant genus h(X) is independent on G, i.e. h(X) = h(X). In this paper we are considering the rigidity problem for complex manifolds. In particular, we are proving that a genus ...