2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
5/26/2021 | 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM | MACROINVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGE RESPONSE TO DROUGHT IN TROPICAL MONTANE STREAMS: AN APPLICATION OF BIOTIC INDICES | Virtual Platform
MACROINVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGE RESPONSE TO DROUGHT IN TROPICAL MONTANE STREAMS: AN APPLICATION OF BIOTIC INDICES
Climate change models have projected a decrease in precipitation across numerous regions of the world, highlighting the need to study the effects of low rainfall on freshwater ecosystems. In 2015, the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico experienced the most severe drought within the past 5 decades, providing an avenue to assess how freshwater macroinvertebrate assemblages respond to drought. We analyzed quantitative macroinvertebrate data (2014-2015) by using multiple biotic indices: the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP-PR), Family Biotic Index (FBI-PR), percent Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera taxa richness, and percent dominance. We correlated monthly discharge to the index values for each sampling date. The dominance of tolerant taxa increased in the drought group and index values fluctuated as hypothesized for both groups, excluding BMWP-PR values. However, none of these differences were statistically significant except for the FBI-PR values in pools, and no significant correlations were found between discharge and all indices. We propose that these results may show evidence of macroinvertebrate adaptation to a wide range of flows. Given projected increases in drought frequency due to climate change, future studies can evaluate how freshwater ecosystems may be altered by potential regime shifts.
- Flow regime
- Stream
- Tropical
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Presenters/Authors
Maricela Alaniz
(), San Diego State University, maricela.n.alaniz@gmail.com;
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