SGER: Tsunami Effects on the Distribution of Aquatic Insects Adjacent to the Andaman Sea Coastline in Thailand

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Along the Thai coastline, the wave surge of the tsunami reached a maximum elevation ofapproximately 11 meters. Thus, the distance inland that surface seawater infiltrated wasdependent on the topographic contour of the land and the wave height at a particular location,although it was reported to reach as far as 5 km inland. The force of the surge in Thailand wasdevastating to the point that tens of thousands of humans were killed, whereas the effect on nonhumanbiota remains largely unreported. Because of their unique habitat association, the lentic (standing water) insect community is particularly vulnerable to the effects of a tsunami. Their habitat is best thought of as an island of freshwater in a terrestrial sea. These organisms are obligately associated with freshwater, thus,even if they survived the physical disturbance of the tsunami, their ability to locate and occupy an appropriate freshwater habitat following the recession of seawater would be nil. Further, the post-tsunami environment in the ponds is undoubtedly contaminated with seawater, which is uninhabitable by this community. Thus, to a large extent, this fauna in the zone of seawater surface influx likely will have been extirpated, at least temporarily. The research will assess the diversity of insects in these environments prior and through the rainy season of two years and report on the changes that occur in the ponds for insect diversity. Because the condition of these bodies of water is unknown and the effects of tsunamis onfreshwater systems has never been documented, this proposed research is clearly exploratory. Tsunami events in the Indian Ocean are exceedingly uncommon, even more so than elsewhere in the world, and this represents an equally uncommon opportunity to study its effects on a biota whose pre-tsunami condition islargely known..