This book contains 36 of the papers presented at the meetings covering the many aspects of oligochaete biology from ecological through evolutionary studies, divided into the following sections: Systematics and Evolution Taxonomy and Geographic Distribution Distribution, Abundance and Habitat Types Ultrastructure Pollution Studies Population Dynamics The volume highlights the single largest contribution of Soviet oligochaete biology presented in English since 1980. Nine of the 36 papers in this collection are written by authors from the former U.S.S.R.

After some conversations with Professor Dr. H. Caspers and other participants at the triennial congress of the International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology (S. I. L. ) held in Copenhagen, Denmark (1977), the senior editor approached the international delegates at the business meeting for approval of the concept of holding the First International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology at Sidney (near Victoria) British Columbia on May 1-4, 1979. The S. I. L. agreed to sponsor such a meeting, and this sponsorship in turn led to the provision of space and technical facilities at the Institute of Ocean Sciences Patricia Bay, the Pacific Regional headquarters of the Ocean and Aquatic Sciences component of the federal Fisheri~s and Oceans Department. The National Research Council of Canada provided travel support for a number of non-Canadian participants. Invitations were sent to as many active workers in the field as the senior editor could name, and in addition two representatives of closely allied fields were invited - Dr. V. Standen who works with closely related but terrestrial species, and Dr. J. Grassle who works with polychaetes but especially with Capitella capitata which is much like an oligochaete in some aspects of its biolog- so much so that the senior editor in his salad days succumbed to some ill-founded advice and described Capitella as a new marine tubificid! The addition of these "outside" influences prevented the group from making a number of unfounded assumptions during discussions, and provided valuable cross-linkages.

In aquatic ecosystems, the oligochaetes are often a major component of the community. Their relevance in sediment quality assessment is largely related to their benthic and detritivorous life habit. In this book, we aim to present the state of the art of Pollution Biology using oligochaete worms in laboratory and field studies. Future research will require the combination of a variety of methodological approaches and the integration of the resulting information, avoiding fragmented and often conflicting visions of the relationships of the species with their environment. Current approaches to ecotoxicology and bioaccumulation using ecological risk assessment provide the opportunity to relate community studies with probability of effects. This book addresses three main themes: Ecological and Field Studies using the composition and structure of oligochaete communities, Toxicology and Laboratory Studies, and Bioaccumulation and Trophic Transfer Studies. Two appendices list values of toxicological parameters (LC50, EC50) and several bioaccumulation variables (bioaccumulation factors, biological half-life, toxicokinetic coefficients, and critical body residues) for different oligochaete species. Additional information is provided on Methodological Issues and on the Taxonomy of several oligochaete families, with information on the most recent taxonomic debates. Each chapter includes a critical view, based on the authors’ experience, of a number of current issues which have been raised in the literature.

Recent studies on diverse aspects of the biology of clitellate works (oligochaetes and leeches) are found in the Proceedings of the most recent International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology - from development to population dynamics and from ultrastructure to evolution. The majority of the contributions, which have a very broad geographic scope, are investigations of the biology and ecology of oligochaete works in natural and polluted waters.

Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology

This book contains 26 contributions dealing with the biology of aquatic oligochaetes and covers a wide range of topics including taxonomy, morphology, ultrastructure, embryology, reproduction, feeding biology, ecotoxicity, community studies, and species distribution. Descriptions of new taxa in tropical areas, including Amazonian forest soils, as well as overviews on the biodiversity of aquatic oligochaetes in Australia and European groundwaters, are presented. New morphological characteristics in both marine and freshwater species are described and interpreted. Laboratory studies contribute to the knowledge of oligochaete feeding biology and reproduction. The use of aquatic oligochaetes in ecological risk assessment is analysed in detail, and standardised experimental designs for studies on bioaccumulation and pollutant transfer by food are included. Finally, a number of papers present the effects of oliogochaetes on the performance of an activated sludge plant, and multivariate approaches to the spatial and/or temporal distribution and composition of oligochaete communities in many different areas of the world, from the scale of a river to the scale of the microhabitat. The broad scope of this volume is a reflection of recent rends, not only in oligochaete research, but also in general applied biological studies.

At the First International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology in Sidney, B. C. , the suggestion was made to hold the second in Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore, at the C. N. R. -Istituto Italiano di Idrobiologia. At the same time it was decided that there should be a symposium every third year. The organization of the symposium was made considerably easier by the Senior Editor's having been in personal contact with several Russian colleagues (courtesy of a kind invitation from the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences), the 'Hamburg Group' and the Junior Editor. Correspondence with various students of Oligochaeta also furnished many useful suggestions. The Second International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology was therefore held in Pallanza in late September 1982 and was attended by 53 scientists from 16 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. No review papers were formally invited as this had already been done at the first symposium: all the papers were accordingly allotted the same time for oral presentation. These proceedings contain all papers Hrabe and Slepukhina, which were given in absentia, as it presented at the symposium, including those by was impossible for the authors to join the group. The main topics were taxonomy and evolution of Oligo chaeta, life-cyle and population studies, the role of Oligo chaeta in assessing water pollution, physiolog ical studies, community and distribution studies. Special taxonomic workshops took place in the evenings.