Title: Using Lake Ontario Biocomplexity Research Sites for Coastal Environmental Indicator Testing
1Using Lake Ontario Biocomplexity Research Sites
for Coastal Environmental Indicator Testing
Marci Meixler and Mark Bain Cornell University
Sponsored by
2Project goals
- To test a variety of wetland indicators over
- both space and time
- Invertebrates 3
- Fish 2 2
- Landscape measures 2
- Total phosphorus and nitrates 2
- Sediment flow
- Wetland plants 2
- Water levels
3Study sites
Eastern sites
Sampled 8 wetlands with 2 plant communities each
3x in the summer of 2002
Western sites
4Invertebrate sampling
- 3 methods
- activity traps
- hester-dendy samplers
- sweep netting
5Method
Time
6Comparison of invertebrate methods
7Fish sampling
- 4 methods
- fyke nets
- minnow traps
- electrofishing
- gill netting
8Method
Time
9Comparison of fishing methods
10Landscape measures
- 2 methods
- field based site inspections
- GIS
11Comparison of landscape measures
12Total phosphorus and nitrates
- 2 methods
- Water chemistry field sampling
- Storet data
13Comparison of water chemistry methods
14Wetland plant sampling
- 2 sampling methods
- submerged plants
- emergent plants
15Comparison of wetland plant evaluation methods
16Sediment flow
Water levels
17Sediment flow and water level Indicator
evaluation
18Overall recommendations
- Invertebrates
- Hester-dendys?
- Activity traps?
- Fish
- Minnow traps?
- Electrofishing when possible and fyke nets when
not - Landscape measures
- Refine landscape measures GIS specialist
- Water chemistry
- STORET if recent data exist sampling if not
19Hardest part of fieldwork?
20How this data can be used?
- Comparisons
- Indicator strength
- Gear type
- Temporal changes
- Spatial variation
21Fish sampling
- 3,150 individuals of 25 species
- Brown bullhead, bluegill, largemouth bass and
pumpkinseed most common