Impact of temperature and hypoxia on the size and survival of aquatic insects

It is crucial to understand impact of the globally rising temperatures on
the functional traits of the insects. This is mostly due to the functional
traits change, under temperature regime shift, can impact survivability of
the individuals and population. Insects´ size is an important functional
trait, affected by temperature. It was hypothesized, that many aquatic
insects are getting smaller, with the temperature increase, probably due
to the hypoxic-induced reduction of metabolic rate. This dataset contains
data on the larvae and pupae size of non-biting midge (Chironomus
riparius) and their change in the mesocosm setting, and their change under
the impact of different combinations of temperature and hypoxia. We have
compared the body size and survivability of C.
riparius in six experimental treatments: three at 20°C, with
high, medium and low oxygen concentration and three at 30°C, with the same
three levels of oxygen concentrations. To achieve this comparison, we have
collected and measured pupal exuviae and (at the very end of the
experiment) larvae of the non-biting midge. This dataset contains digital
measutments of the scaled images of larvae and pupal exuviae. All the
exuviae photos are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14516968.
Measurements were conducted on the digital images, using Fiji –ImageJ with
calibrated scale (scales for the calibration are attached alongside the
rest of the images at Zenodo) Our measurments
https://zenodo.org/uploads/14516968 showed that C.
riparius pupae were significantly smaller at 30°C treatments with
medium and low oxygen levels than in the rest of the treatments. No
significant reduction in pupal size was observed in the 30°C treatment
with high oxygen content. We have found no significant differences in size
of larvae between the treatments. However, we detected reduced larval
survivability in the 30°C treatments with medium and low oxygen levels
compared to the other treatments.