ABSTRACT
The largest hypersaline water bodies are well known geographical features of the regions in which they occur. The Dead Sea, in western Asia, is located at the deepest point on the earth below sea level that is not at the bottom of a sea. That the need to maintain an optimal salinity in body fluids is physiologically challenging is demonstrated by the fact that vertebrates are among the first organisms to disappear from habitats with increasing salt concentrations. In some parts of the world, coastal flood plains with restricted access to the sea become flooded with seawater during spring tides or due to heavy wind storms. After being flooded, the water remains until it evaporates. Artificial habitats along seacoasts in various parts of the world would seem to offer many insect species an ever increasing, physiological stress in their environment, which is not present in natural coastal marshes.
