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DIATOM INDICATORS OF TOTAL PHOSPHORUS, SEDIMENTS, AND WATERSHED FOREST COVER IN LAKE MICHIGAN COASTAL, RIVERINE WETLANDS
Citation:
Thompson, J A., M S. Pearson, B. H. Hill, T. M. Jicha, C M. Elonen, D L. Taylor, M F. Moffett, AND N E. Detenbeck. DIATOM INDICATORS OF TOTAL PHOSPHORUS, SEDIMENTS, AND WATERSHED FOREST COVER IN LAKE MICHIGAN COASTAL, RIVERINE WETLANDS. Presented at 52nd Annual Meeting of the North American Benthological Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 6-10, 2004.
Description:
Diatom assemblages are being investigated as response and diagnostic indicators as part of our Great Lakes coastal wetlands research designed to support the development of nutrient, habitat, and sediment criteria and to develop community- and landscape-level diagnostic indicator of wetland impairment. From randomly selected riverine coastal wetlands of Lake Michigan, we collected environmental data, which included physical and chemical measures of the water column and watershed land cover data and diatoms. Diatom species data were converted to attributes base on autoecological preferences. Non-parametric ordination and regression analyses were used to identify, and test the relationship between, important attributes and environmental variables. Significant relationships were plotted and fitted to a curve to evaluate the nature of the relationship. We found total phosphorus, suspended sediments, and watershed forest cover to be the most important environmental variables related to the diatom assemblages. Saprobic (those tolerating high levels of organic pollution), pollution intolerant, and motile diatoms (those tolerating sediments) were most useful for developing stressor-response curves and identifying threshold levels of total phosphorous, total suspended sediment, and the percent of forest cover within a watershed.