Aquatic invertebrates and water quality monitoring in the Little Luckiamute River

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Aquatic invertebrates and water quality
monitoring in the Little Luckiamute River

• Dr. Karen Haberman and the students of General
  Ecology,
• Fall 2004, 2005 and 2006

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Talk outline

• Watersheds an overview
• Key stream macroinvertebrates
• Ecological questions
• Educational Goals
• Methods

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Watershed, defined

• A watershed is the entire network of rivers and
  streams that feed into a common system. It also
  includes all of the surrounding land and
  subsurface waters.

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Substances in the river

• Water!
• Dissolved gases (examples)
• Inorganic material
• Dissolved (examples)
• Particulate (Examples)
• Organic material
• Dissolved (examples)
• Particulate (examples)
• In which categories do pollutants fall? What
  makes something a pollutant?

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What happens to these substances?

• Collection, accumulation, storage
• Processing, transport, distribution
• What happens to a leaf that drops into the river
  at its headwaters?

Photo Kevin Wolf
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River continuum(pictures from Stroud Water
Research Center)

• Headwater Mid-reaches Near mouth

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River continuum
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Human impact

• Photo US Army Corps of Engineers

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Order Ephemeroptera mayflies
Image Xerces Society
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Order Plecoptera stoneflies
Image Xerces Society
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Order Trichoptera caddisflies
Drawing University of Michigan

• Illustration University of Illinois, Entomology

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Order Diptera flies
Chironomidae (midge) larvae
Simulidae (black fly) larvae
Images Xerces Society
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Other Insect Orders with common aquatic members

• Order Coleoptera beetles
• Order Odonata Dragonflies and damselflies
• Order Hemiptera True bugs
• Order Neuroptera Dobsonflies, for ex.

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Why study stream macroinvertebrates?

• They are food for developing salmonids
• Particular groups/species are sensitive to
  particular pollutants
• Overall, higher diversity is correlated with
  healthy streams
• Macroinvertebrates integrate impacts over time
• Surveys are relatively inexpensive.
• What is the key limitation?

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Ecological questions

• Are there significant differences in
  diversity/biological integrity for sites on the
  Little Luckiamute River upstream of Fall City
  compared to sites within/downstream of Falls
  City?
• Do numbers/types of pollution-intolerant groups
  differ significantly among sites?
• Are there correlations between the
  macro-invertebrate community and other measures
  of water quality?
• Is water quality changing over time?

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Educational goals

• Teach students about watershed ecology in
  general, and about their own watershed in
  particular.
• Give students experience with field work,
  macroinvertebrate identification and data
  analysis.
• Provide students with the opportunity to think
  critically about their methods and results, and
  to write a scientific paper based on class data.

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Methods overview

• General logistics
• Surveys take place in the first 2 weeks of
  October.
• Two surveys are conducted upstream of Falls City
  two surveys are conducted downstream of Falls
  City.
• Currently have three years of data.
• Survey and collection (DEQ protocols Xerces
  Society Jeff Adams et al.)
• Macroinvertebrate collection
• Water chemistry and associated measurements
• Substrate measurements (Wolman pebble count)
• Sorting and identification to family in lab

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Collecting macroinvertebrates
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Picking in the field
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Assessing substrate size(Wolman pebble counts)
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Water test kits
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