Dear Ana

The Benke et al., (1999) paper may be of some use to you. What you can actually achieve is the biomass which will be a good indicator for secondary production. You only have snap shot of specie size and abundance. You may be able to estimate or guess the size for the entire year and by weight averaging it using the abundance of species get a weight year around. They do this for temperature, pH and O2, so I don't see why not for weight. However, what you get is an estimate. So if you decide to not go with this just stick with biomass for time of the year you can measure the species.

Length-Mass Relationships for Freshwater Macroinvertebrates in North America with Particular Reference to the Southeastern United StatesAuthor(s): Arthur C. Benke, Alexander D. Huryn, Leonard A. Smock and J. Bruce Wallace Source: Journal of the North American Benthological Society, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp.308-343

Rossaro et al.,. Chironomids from Southern Alpine running waters: ecology, biogeography. Hydrobiologia (2006) 562:231–246

Hope this helps.

best

Dear Armi,

Thank you very much for your contribution. I have already developed my own length-mass relationships for the native populations I study, so it will be much easier to estimate biomass. But I will only have this information for the short period when my species is not buried. Do you think that I still could estimate secondary production?

Thanks again!

 Hi Ana

I don't know if Dr. Benke is still active. Last time I contacted him (I was a MSc student) he was more than helpful. Try and contact him or any of his co-authors. They will probably give you a better answer than any I could provide.  He also recommended Dr. Alex Huryn

[email protected]

[email protected]

Best

Armin

Excelent Armin! I will contact them! Thank you very much! 

Kind regards,

Ana Clara