2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
6/06/2017 | 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM | ASSESSING ECOLOGICAL HEALTH OF DRY PHASE INTERMITTENT RIVERS AND EPHEMERAL STREAMS | 302C
ASSESSING ECOLOGICAL HEALTH OF DRY PHASE INTERMITTENT RIVERS AND EPHEMERAL STREAMS
Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) can remain dry from weeks to years, making traditional assessment techniques impractical. As perennial river systems become increasingly intermittent worldwide, there is a growing need to develop tools to assess ecological health during the dry phase. We sampled bryophytes and terrestrial arthropods at thirty-nine sites in the San Diego region across environmental and disturbance gradients as potential biological indicators during dry periods. We collected bryophytes within the channel and surrounding riparian zone using a microhabitat-based sampling protocol and arthropods using ramped pitfall traps within the channel. Bryophyte morpho-species richness differed significantly (p < 0.05) between reference and non-reference sites. Several of the 18 arthropod metrics tested also differed significantly, including: ant relative richness and combined beetle and spider relative richness. We expect that accounting for natural variability in metric scores and assessing additional arthropod metrics (e.g. dispersal ability and functional feeding groups) will yield additional sensitive metrics. These initial results suggest that multi-metric indices based on terrestrial arthropods and bryophytes may be used to assess IRES ecological condition when dry.
- C28 Land-Water Interfaces
- S31 Moving forward in flow ecology: identifying and testing key hypotheses
- C17 Bioassessment
Presentation:
This presentation has not yet been uploaded.
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
CART transcripts are NOT YET available, but will be posted shortly after the conference
Presenters/Authors
Matthew Robinson
(), California State University Monterey Bay, marobinson@csumb.edu;
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
John Olson
(), Dept of Applied Environmental Science, California State University Monterey Bay, CA, USA, joolson@csumb.edu;
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
Raphael Mazor
(), Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, raphaelm@sccwrp.org;
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -