The applicability of cellulose acetate gel electrophoresis (CAGE) was tested in three areas: life history elucidation, larval-adult association, and phylogeny reconstruction.

Where one species of Ameletus mayfly was assumed to occur at each of two study sites in the Elbow River drainage of the eastern Rocky Mountain foothills, seven species were identified at Ford Creek and three of these also occurred in the Elbow River head waters. I used electrophoresis to identify very small larvae that were indistinguishable morphologically, and could then describe the life histories of the four commonest species at both sites.

The CAGE technique allowed me to associate larvae of Costa Rican Hetaerina species with their adults. The small amount of tissue required for electrophoretic analysis enabled me to save morphologically important body parts of larvae and use them to describe and characterize the larvae and to produce a key for larval identification.

Phylogenetic relationships between species belonging to three damselfly genera, Argia, Enallagma and Hetaerina, were assessed and compared with available morphological data.