There are relatively few state or federal programs designed to monitor nonwadeable rivers. Many of the more common community metrics used in wadeable stream assessment may not be appropriate for assessing these systems. We sampled nonwadeable rivers in Michigan to obtain information on which macroinvertebrate metrics respond most precisely to various anthropogenic impacts, as well as physical and chemical differences between reaches and rivers. Additionally, we were interested in how closely functional group surrogates track measured ecosystem parameters. Reaches were approximately 2000m long, and macroinvertebrate samples were taken at transects every 200m with a D-frame aquatic dip net. In this preliminary stage of the project, we were interested in 1) habitat-specific invertebrate community variation among reaches of the same river; 3) variation between rivers; and 4) functional feeding group dose-response relationships across a gradient of anthropogenic impacts and habitat differences. Preliminary data will be reported on which metrics may be most useful for assessing nonwadeable river ecosystem integrity.
Keywords: aquatic insects, biomonitoring
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA