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A COMPARISON OF SIX BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATE SAMPLING METHODS IN FOUR LARGE RIVERS
Citation:
Blocksom, K A. AND J E. Flotemersch. A COMPARISON OF SIX BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATE SAMPLING METHODS IN FOUR LARGE RIVERS. Presented at New England Association of Environmental Biologists, Newport, RI, March 13-15, 2002.
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:
In 1999, a study was conducted to compare six macroinvertebrate sampling methods in four large (boatable) rivers that drain into the Ohio River. Two methods each were adapted from existing methods used by the USEPA, USGS and Ohio EPA. Drift nets were unable to collect a sufficient number of organisms and this sampling method was dropped from further analysis. Hester-Dendy samplers tended to collect fewer taxa overall and fewer Diptera taxa than kick net and dip/pick methods. Although the kick net and dip/pick methods collected similar numbers of taxa, similarity index values indicate that they were not collecting the same taxa. In fact, no single method collected more than about half of the total number of taxa collected at a site, regardless of the level of taxonomic identification. Both species composition and certain metrics were related strongly to mean reach depth, although the reason for this relationship is unclear.