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RECORD NUMBER: 4 OF 77

Main Title Acute Effects of Stream Acidification on the Diversity of Macroinvertebrate Drift.
Author Pratt, J. Michael ; Hall, Ronald J. ;
CORP Author Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY.;Environmental Research Lab.-Duluth, MN.
Year Published 1982
Report Number EPA-600/D-82-289;
Stock Number PB82-223819
Additional Subjects Acidity ; Ecology ; Water pollution ; Hubbard Brook ; pH ; Snowmelt ; Melting ; Snow cover ; Species diversity ; Diptera ; Animal behavior ; Ions ; Species diversity ; Acid precipitation ; Ecosystems
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NTIS  PB82-223819 Some EPA libraries have a fiche copy filed under the call number shown. 07/26/2022
Collation 22p
Abstract
A third-order reach of Norris Brook, a small stream in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, was experimentally acidified for five months to determine what effects acid precipitation may have on the ecology of a poorly buffered lotic ecosystem. The initial six days of stream acidification simulated a low pH regime that can occur in a small mountain stream receiving meltwater from a rapidly thawing snowpack contaminated with acidic deposition. The first two to three days of acid addition constituted a period of acute H-ion stress (pH 4) that elicited a tenfold increase in the daily drift rate of benthic macroinvertebrates. This increased drift leaving the acidified reach was also more diverse overall in terms of major taxa (orders), trophic functional groups, and behavioral groups but less diverse at the generic level than the drift entering. In addition, the macrofauna abandoning the acidified area compared to that entering was particularly more diverse generically in mayflies and probably midges, collector-gatherers, and clingers and swimmers.