Most of the papers included here were part of the Plenary Sym posium on The Testing of General Ecological Theory in Lotic Ecosys tems held in conjunction with the 29th Annual Meeting of the North American Benthological Society in Provo, Utah, April 28, 1981. Sev eral additional papers were solicited, from recognized leaders in certain areas of specialization, in order to round out the coverage. All of the articles have been critiqued by at least two or three re viewers and an effort was made to rely on authorities in stream and theoretical ecology. In all cases this has helped to insure accur...