Stoneflies - Plecoptera: Nemouridae of Gunnison County, ColoradoIntroduction to Zapada Forestflies, Winter StonefliesRicker, 1952Updated 11 February 2026
Provisional Species ListNotesZapada is a nearactic genera of stoneflies that mostly live in cold streams. Various Zapada species are distributed across the mountains of the western USA.Good LinksOn this website:Key to the Zapada Nymphs Introduction to the Nemouridae ReferencesBaumann,RW 1979 Nearctic stonefly genera as indicators of ecological parameters (Plecoptera: Insecta). The Great Basin Naturalist, 241-244. PDFThe genus Zapada is present in cold lotic (stream or river) habitats, as well as cold lentic (lake) habitats. Abstract: "Selected stonefly genera found in North America are classified as to their occurrence in: cold lotic, warm lotic, or lentic habitats. Most genera occur only in the cold lotic, but several occur both in cold and warm lotic systems. Few are found exclusively in warm lotic habitats and almost none in lentic. Lake or true lentic inhabits are found to usually be cold lotic species which have adapted to life in the wave-washed shores of cold mountain lakes. Even though data at the specific level would be even more useful, especially where different faunal regions are involved, stoneflies are probably the best insect indicators of aquatic environmental quality at the generic level." Baumann,RW, Gaufin,AR and Surdick,RF 1977 The stoneflies (Plecoptera) of the Rocky Mountains. Memoirs of the American Entomological Society 31, 1-208. PDF Quote from page 41: "This is the most common genus of the family Nemouridae in the Rocky Mountains. Zapada species are found in almost every flowing water habitat in the northern Rocky Mountains and Z. cinctipes is the most vagile species in the whole group, Euholognatha. The genus is distinguished by the presence of two pairs of cervical gills, one on the inside and one on the outside of the lateral cervical sclerites (fig. 139). Zapada species are abundant in accumulations of leaf material and probably act as shredders of allochthonous material in heterotrophic lotic ecosystems." Carlisle,DM and Clements,WH 2003 Growth and secondary production of aquatic insects along a gradient of Zn contamination in Rocky Mountain streams. Journal North American Benthological Society 22(4), 582-597. Abstract and entire paper Cather,MR and Gaufin,AR 1976 Comparative ecology of three Zapada species of Mill Creek, Wasatch Mountains, Utah (Plecoptera: Nemouridae). American Midland Naturalist 464-471. Abstract: "Three species of Zapada (Plecoptera) were studied in Mill Creek, Wasatch Mountains, Utah, and their life histories, growth rates, distribution and emergence compared. All species, Z. haysi (Ricker), Z. cinctipes (Banks) and Z. columbiana (Claassen) have a univoltine life history and a slow seasonal life cycle. Temporal and spatial distributions and staggered emergence periods serve to ecologically separate these species. All three grow most rapidly in autumn and early winter, with a seasonal succession in the maximum absolute growth rates. Maximum size overlap between Zapada haysi and Z. cinctipes occurs in spring prior to and during emergence when growth is complete, whereas minimum overlap occurs in autumn when growth is fastest. Zapada haysi and Z. columbiana were found more at the upper cooler stations and Z. cinctipes at the lower stations. Zapada cinctipes was collected from late February to late June (one ♀ in mid-January), Z. columbiana mostly in March and Z. haysi from early April to mid-June. The mean size of the adults of Zapada cinctipes decreased as emergence progressed and may be related to increasing stream temperatures and photoperiod." DeWalt,RE and Stewart,KW 1995 Life histories of stoneflies (Plecoptera) in the Rio Conejos of southern Colorado. Great Basin Naturalist 55, 1-18. PDF Hotaling,S; Shah,AA; Dillon,ME; Giersch,JJ; Tronstad,LM; Finn,DS; Woods,HA and Kelley,JL 2021 Cold tolerance of mountain stoneflies (Plecoptera: Nemouridae) from the high Rocky Mountains. Western North American Naturalist, 81(1), pp.54-62. PDF Narrative of the Zapada data from the text and Table 1: Zapada spp were collected in the Grand Tetons at a site called Wind Cave. It was described as an "Icy seep". Quote from page 57: "We categorized streams as icy seeps by these 4 criteria: no named glaciers or significant perennial snowfields feeding them, consistently low temperatures (e.g., T MEAN ≤ 3 °C), a classic "lobe" of a rock glacier visible (e.g., Mount Saint John), and moderate to high C[Conductivity] for mountain streams (>25 µS·cm-1)." Over a 24hr time period on 28 July 2019, the Wind Cave water temperature minimum was 2.6°C, maximum was 2.8°C, the conductivity was 101.1 µS·cm-1, the Pfankuch Index(PI) was 18 [indicating a moderately stable streambed, 18 was the lowest PI of the sites they studied.] "The mean and standard deviation of the supercooling point" for Zapada spp. was -7.2°C ± 2.0. The supercooling point was the temperature at which the stonefly larvae began to release latent heat and then freeze in their experimental apparatus at the lab. Larson,EI; Poff,NL; Atkinson,CL and Flecker,AS 2018 Extreme flooding decreases stream consumer autochthony by increasing detrital resource availability. Freshwater Biology, 63(12), pp.1483-1497. PDF Quote: "Functional Feeding Group Community Composition Two study streams lost a functional feeding group following the 2013 flooding. No shredders were found at Black Canyon in 2014, the stream with the highest shear stress value. Shredders had comprised 6% of the stream insect community there by numbers of individuals in the 2011 sampling, consisting of the nemourid stonefly Zapada sp. and the lepidostomatid caddisfly Lepidostoma sp., which were not found at the stream during 2014 sampling." About a page later, another quote: "All taxa showed variability in the proportion of their diet derived from autochthonous compared to allochthonous sources across streams (Supplementary Table 1). Generally, mean consumer autochthony ranged from around 0.25 to 0.5 proportionally of the diet. Certain taxa, such as the rhyacophilid caddisfly Rhyacophila angelita (mean of dietary proportion derived from the epilithon of 0.39-0.48 for their prey across streams), the simuliid blackfly Simulium sp. (0.24-0.31), the perlodid stonefly Megarcys signata (0.48-0.53) and nemourid stonefly Zapada sp. (0.51-0.53) varied little in their resource use across streams. In contrast, the baetid mayfly Baetis bicaudatis (0.22-0.52), the perlodid stonefly Kogotus modestus (0.28-0.61), and the ephemerellid mayflies Drunella doddsi (0.26-0.55), and Drunella grandis (0.25-0.42) exhibited more variability in their resource use across streams. Full stable isotope results and biplots are available in Supplemental Figures 1 and 2." Mutch,RA and Pritchard,G 1982 The importance of sampling and sorting techniques in the elucidation of the life cycle of Zapada columbiana (Nemouridae: Plecoptera). Canadian Journal of Zoology, 60(12), pp.3394-3399. Abstract: "The life cycle of Zapada columbiana (Claassen) was shown to be of 2 years duration at three sites in Alberta, Canada, where the species was previously said to be univoltine. The erroneous conclusion of previous investigators was attributed primarily to the use of nets with too large a mesh size. However other factors such as sorting without magnification, inability to recognize young Z. columbiana, and erroneous assumptions regarding egg incubation times may also have contributed. It is suggested that the temperature regimes of the streams in the Alberta Rocky Mountains are such that Zapada columbiana cannot complete its life cycle in 1 year." Ricker,WE 1952 Systematic studies in Plecoptera. Indiana University Publications, Science Series 18, 200 pages, Bloomington, Indiana. Described the genus Zapada. Ricker,WE 1992 Origin of stonefly names proposed by Ricker and collaborators. Perla, 18(1) 12 pages. PDF Quote from page 11: "Zapada Ricker 1952 (as sg. of Nemoura). Russian zapad = west. Occurs mainly in western North America. " Short,RA; Canton,SP and Ward,JV 1980 Detrital processing and associated macroinvertebrates in a Colorado mountain stream. Ecology, 61(4), 727-732. PDF Stewart,KW and Ricker,WE 1997 The stoneflies of the Yukon. pgs 201-222 in Danks,HV and Downes,JA (Eds.), Insects of the Yukon. Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods), Ottawa. 1034 pp. Quote from page 210 and 211: "Nearctic; 10 species, 8 of which are western, from Alaska and Yukon to California and New Mexico. Adults 5-10 mm, emerging mainly Februaary-August, depending on elevation and latitude. Some combination of Zapada species is common in most streams of western mountain ranges and high-latitude streams. Nymphs are shredders, found mainly in coarse particulate organic matter. Ubiquitous species generally have univoltine life cycles at southern latitudes and semivoltine cycles in Canada. " Tronstad,LM; Hotaling,S; Giersch,JJ; Wilmot,OJ and Finn,DS 2020 Headwaters fed by subterranean ice: potential climate refugia for mountain stream communities?. BioRxiv, p.788273. Wipfli,MS, Hudson,J and Caouette,J 1998 Influence of salmon carcasses on stream productivity: response of biofilm and benthic macroinvertebrates in southeastern Alaska, U.S.A. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 55(6): 1503-1511 Abstract |