Quaternary Insects: Reconstructing the Ecosystems of the Past

Dear Colleagues,

Insects are the largest group of living organisms, and they play a significant role in all terrestrial ecosystems, including lakes and rivers, bogs, wetlands, etc. The quaternary period is the time of dramatic climate changes; fossil records have helped us to reconstruct these changes and the environmental response to them. Insects lived in various and often non-analogous environments, such as periglacial landscapes in the middle latitudes of Europe or steppe-tundra in northern Siberia. Insects also accompanied humans throughout history, and archaeoentomology can tell us a lot about the lives of our ancestors. Quaternary insect research has to date been relegated to the margins of the science mainstream, with the study of bug fragments being unfairly dismissed as “practically useless” and “exotic” when this could not be further from the truth. The main purpose of this Special Issue is to showcase the possibilities that insect studies offer—for example, how we can examine the history of a local lake changes based on head capsules of nonbiting midge larvae or the role of wetlands in non-analogue landscapes. Topics of interest include migration, relict species and extinction, climate stratigraphy, taphonomy, and climate and the environment, all seen through the unique information that insects provide about the past. It is hard to predict the long-term consequences of climate change, but the past can be a source of inspiration, where these changes have already taken place.

The community of quaternary insect research is small and intimate. Many of us spent hours as kid near ponds making our first observations from the world of insects, an experience that frequently influenced our later life and career. Insects are absolutely impressive creatures of great importance to the world. Indeed, it seems we hold in our hands an invaluable tool for past climate reconstruction in the form of insects, something which has grown rapidly in importance in recent years due to climate change and the need for predictions of the ways that the environment responds to it.

We are pleased to invite you to this Special Issue on “Quaternary Insects: Reconstructing the Ecosystems of the Past” of the open access journal Water. The scope of the journal means that we should focus on water insects and related problems, including riparian habitats, wetlands, bog, peat, and “wet” archeological sites, as well as insect-led methods of sediment origin recognition (e.g., fluvial vs. aeolian). Additional groups, such as water cruciferins, are welcome, but insects should be involved.

This Special Issue aims to show the importance of insect remains in paleo reconstructions. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: quaternary Chironomidae, water and wetland species of Coleoptera, different orders of water insects (Odonata, Trichoptera, etc.), insects from peat, reconstructions of natural successions (including water), insects from human affected ancient wetlands, and non-analogues communities (including water).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Svetlana A. Kuzmina
Dr. Larisa Nazarova
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• water insects
• Pleistocene
• Holocene
• wetland
• environment
• climate
• paleolimnology