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Variance in water chemistry parameters in isolated wetlands of Florida, USA, and relationships with macroinvertebrate and diatom community structure
Citation:
LANE, C. R. Variance in water chemistry parameters in isolated wetlands of Florida, USA, and relationships with macroinvertebrate and diatom community structure. Presented at Society of Wetland Scientists Annual Meeting, Madison, WI, June 22 - 26, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
There are three main objectives of the proposed research in isolated wetlands: 1) isolated wetland characterization and conditional assessment; 2) isolated wetlands and landscape nutrient dynamics, including annual and seasonal variation in soil and water parameters; and 3) accuracy assessment and extent determination of isolated wetlands.
Description:
Eighty small isolated wetlands throughout Florida were sampled in 2005 to explore within-site variability of water chemistry parameters and relate water chemistry to macroinvertebrate and diatom community structure. Three samples or measures of water were collected within each site, separated by at least 10m. Marsh sites were located in either agricultural or reference settings and forested sites were located in either agricultural, urban, or reference settings. Analyses of physical parameters demonstrated high within-site variability, with average coefficients of variation (CV) ranging from 2% to 48%. Nutrient parameter CVs were 14% for nitrate-nitrite - N, 19% for total Kjeldahl nitrogen, 25% for total phosphorus and 27% for ammonia. Tests of median values for each wetland type and landscape setting revealed significant differences for most parameters, although specific conductance and dissolved oxygen were not significantly different between forested wetland classes, and nitrate-nitrite - N was not significant for between-landscape settings for either marshes or forested systems. Ordination of the data demonstrated that despite the variability of the datasets, site water chemistry separated into mostly discrete classes. Analyses into relationships between water chemistry data and macroinvertebrate and diatom data will help to elucidate the importance of particular variables to community structure and allow macroinvertebate and diatom indices of biological integrity to be tested.