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White Sand-river Mayfly - Pseudiron centralis
General Description
This mayfly species is a member of the large prairie river, sand-dwelling invertebrate assemblage of eastern Montana. It should occur in the long streches of shifting sandbar habitat between cobble riffles and runs of the Milk, Powder, lower Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Many large prairie rivers have been dammed affecting the substrate dynamics preffered by this globally uncommon and rare assemblage of insects dominated by mayflies (see also Lachlania saskatchewanensis, Aneperous rusticus, Macdunnoa nipawinia, Homoeoneuria alleni).
Range Comments
Rangewide this species occurs throughout eastern and central North America, and has been known as far west as Alberta (Pescador, 1985) and Utah (Edmunds and Musser, 1960) and California (McCafferty and Meyer, 2007). In Montana, we have only one occurrence record from the Milk River near the Canadian Border where the river still has its natural flow regime and large sand bars.
Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 1
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Relative Density
Recency
(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)
Migration
Non-migratory
Habitat
This species is associated with large, shallow perennially flowing prairie rivers with shifting sand dominated reaches.
Management
Pseudoiron centralis may be declining in the state along with the other sand-dwelling mayflies due to siltation and habitat changes brought on by the building of dams on the large prairie rivers and the low-flow effects of the previous drought in Montana.
Threats or Limiting Factors
All forms of river quality degradation pose potential threats to this species. Particularly, siltation and hydrological alteration from dams, diversions or withdrawal of excess water for human use that alter natural sand bar formation.
References
- Literature Cited AboveLegend:
View Online Publication
Edmunds, G.F. and G.G. Musser. 1960. The mayfly fauna of Green River in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir Basin, Wyoming and Utah. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 48: 111-123.- Meyer, M.D. and W.P. McCafferty. 2007. Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) of the far western United States. Part I: Washington. Transactions of the American Entomological Society 133(1): 21-63.
- Pescador, M.L., 1985. Systematics of the nearctic genus Pseudiron (Ephemeroptera: Heptageniidae: Pseudironinae). Fla. Entomol. 68: 432-444.
- Additional ReferencesLegend: View Online Publication
Do you know of a citation we're missing?- Stagliano, D.M. 2016. Mayflies (Insecta: Ephemeroptera) of conservation Concern in Montana: Status Updates and Management Needs. Western North American Naturalist 76(4):441-451.
- Web Search Engines for Articles on "White Sand-river Mayfly"
- Additional Sources of Information Related to "Insects"
