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POTENTIAL USE OF ALGAE AS INDICATORS OF HYDROLOGIC PERMANENCE IN HEADWATER STREAMS: INITIAL DATA EXPLORATION
Citation:
GREENWOOD, J. AND K. M. FRITZ. POTENTIAL USE OF ALGAE AS INDICATORS OF HYDROLOGIC PERMANENCE IN HEADWATER STREAMS: INITIAL DATA EXPLORATION. Presented at North American Benthological Society, Anchorage, AK, June 04 - 09, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
The goal of this research is to develop methods and indicators that are useful for evaluating the condition of aquatic communities, for assessing the restoration of aquatic communities in response to mitigation and best management practices, and for determining the exposure of aquatic communities to different classes of stressors (i.e., pesticides, sedimentation, habitat alteration).
Description:
Periphyton from headwater intermittent streams was sampled in order to evaluate the potential use of algal assemblages as indicators of flow permanence. Streams from four forests near Cincinnati, Ohio were classified according to hydrologic permanence as ephemeral, intermittent or perennial. Ordination of habitat measures separated streams into three classes, however, ordination of algal community data was less visually distinct. Nevertheless, the multi-response permutation procedure on algal data revealed significant differences between all three hydrologic categories. Algal cell densities were lowest in ephemeral streams and cyanobacteria dominated the assemblage. Intermittent and perennial streams supported similar algal cell densities and were both dominated by diatoms. Algal biomass was lowest in the ephemeral streams and slightly higher, but still overall low in both the intermittent and perennial streams. Indicator species analysis suggested that some diatom taxa may distinguish ephemeral and perennial streams. These results indicate that benthic algal data may be useful in assessing hydrologic conditions of headwater intermittent streams, but further analysis of incoming data is needed to corroborate patterns seen in this initial analysis.