Temporal patterns of a Missouri prairie stream macroinvertebrate community

Prairies streams are among the least studied of all aquatic systems due to both their rarity and ephemeral nature.   Our study aimed to explore the seasonal patterns of macroinvertebrate communities in a Missouri prairie headwater stream.  Macroinvertebrate samples were collected from two mesohabitats of one headwater stream from the onset of stream flow to the end of flow in spring 2014.  Specimens were identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level.  Datasets of species abundances were created for each mesohabitat for use with nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS), which revealed three groupings in each ordination corresponding to early, mid, and late spring.  These groups were verified by multi-response permutation procedure (MRPP) (p<0.0001).  Several species in each group had significant indicator values (indicator species analysis, p<0.05).  These results indicate that a distinct seasonal pattern exists for the macroinvertebrate communities of this prairie stream.  This pattern should be taken into account when choosing sampling dates for activities such as water quality monitoring and diversity surveys in similar prairie streams.