Burroughs 1 Chris Burroughs Corbo Honors English 10/3 23 Sep 2013 Benthic Macroinvertebrates Biodiversity Lab Introduction My experiments

purpose is to determine the difference in biodiversity between two stream communities along bear creek and to assess the quality of the water influenced by such factors as pollution, substrate quality, dissolved oxygen and stream flow. In stream ecosystems, benthic macroinvertebrates are integral components as links within the trophic structure of those ecosystems; they consume algae, plants, detritus and smaller invertebrates for energy which is transferred to such animals as snakes, fish and birds who consume the macroinvertebrates. Additionally, the diversity of different populations of macroinvertebrates in a stream can serve as indicators of water quality within the ecosystem (Meyers). Different species of benthic macroinvertebrates have different sensitivities to conditions within the water and ecosystem. When it comes to streamflow, many macroinvertebrates cannot tolerate high velocities of water going down the stream and may be dislocated into environments in which they cannot survive; dams and sediment that obstruct the flow of the stream also hinder the survival of benthic macroinvertebrates as they disrupt movement paths of the organisms and inhibit development through limiting accessible food supplies (Bunn and Arthington 496). Both factors may decrease the amount of flow-sensitive macroinvertebrates, in turn decreasing the biodiversity of the whole community. Other factors that have this direct negative correlation with the biodiversity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities are substrate quality and dissolved oxygen. Ecosystems with low amounts of dissolved oxygen or none at all are characterized as environments with low water quality and often high pollution, rendering survival of many macroinvertebrates difficult or impossible (Dissolved Oxygen). The substrate is the sediment and material at the bed of a stream in which many organisms, including benthic macroinvertebrates, feed and live. Steward Bunn and Angela Arthington summarize this well, saying Rivers with unstable substrates tend to be characterized by low

Burroughs 2 species diversity (495). Finally, both pollution and elevation have an inverse relationship with stream biodiversity. Agricultural and commercial pollution, as seen along Bear Creek, can result in [...] higher levels of sediment and agricultural chemicals in the stream and [...] reduced water flow and changes in water quality downstream which would decrease biodiversity (Pedersen). Also, as elevation increases, biodiversity tends to increase; A prime regulator of [species] variation at the bioregion extent was elevation range (increasing richness with higher topographic variability) (Muotka et. al. 705). Simply put, stream ecosystems at greater elevations have greater biodiversity in benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Finally, as elevation rises, water temperatures tend to be cooler seasonally, which accommodate many species of macroinvertebrate better than warm temperatures at lower elevations (Sharma and Chowdhary 170). In my analysis of two benthic macroinvertebrate samples from two communities, two factors will help me survey the biodiversity (the variety of life in a particular community/ecosystem) of the stream communities: species richness, which is the amount of different species within the community, and species evenness, which is the relative abundance of each species (Meyers). There will be a difference in the biodiversity of these two benthic macroinvertebrate communities as the ecosystem conditions in the locations vary greatly.

Burroughs 3 Works Cited Bunn, Steward and Angela Arthington. Basic Principles and Ecological Consequences of Altered Flow Regimes for Aquatic Biodiversity. n.d. Web. 20 Sep 2013. <deltacouncil.ca.gov/get-document/213> Dissolved Oxygen. Earth Force. Earth Force, Inc. n.d. Web. 19 Sep 2013. Meyers, Dave. Biodiversity Lecture Notes. Evergreen High School. Evergreen, CO. 9 Sep 2013. Reading. Pedersen, Richard J. Stream Health, Assessing. Water Encyclopedia: Science and Issues. Advameg, Inc. n.d. Web. 19 Sep 2013. Sharma, K. K. and Samita Chowdhary. Macroinvertebrate Assemblages as Biological Indicators of Pollution in a Central Himalayan River, Tawi (J&K). 30 March 2011. Web. 19 Sep 2013. <http://www.academicjournals.org/ijbc/pdf/pdf%202011/May/Sharma%20and %20Chowdhary.pdf> Timo Muotka, et al. Freshwater Biodiversity At Regional Extent: Determinants Of Macroinvertebrate Taxonomic Richness in Headwater Streams. Ecography 34.5 (2011): 705-713. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Sep 2013.

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