2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/22/2018 | 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM | NOVEL BIOMONITORS FOR DRY-PHASE ECOLOGICAL HEALTH ASSESSMENTS TRANSCEND AQUATIC-TERRESTRIAL BOUNDARIES IN TEMPORARY RIVERS | 310 B

NOVEL BIOMONITORS FOR DRY-PHASE ECOLOGICAL HEALTH ASSESSMENTS TRANSCEND AQUATIC-TERRESTRIAL BOUNDARIES IN TEMPORARY RIVERS

Temporary rivers provide dynamic habitats for communities comprising aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Aquatic communities can reach stable states after long, predictable flowing phases, allowing their use in biomonitoring programmes. In contrast, despite supporting a diverse biota comprising persistent aquatic and colonizing terrestrial organisms, dry-phase communities remain poorly characterized, and spatial variation among dry channels of contrasting ecological quality remains unexplored. We used existing data to evaluate the potential of multiple biotic groups (aquatic and terrestrial macrophytes; diatoms; aquatic invertebrate ‘seedbanks’) to differentiate between sites impacted and unimpacted by human activity. Macrophyte and diatom assemblages differed among sites and included taxa indicative of both impacted and unimpacted conditions, whereas seedbank composition was comparable among sites. Abundance, diversity, and ecological quality index scores were typically higher at unimpacted sites, across biotic groups. Our study represents progress towards the incorporation of dry-phase communities into holistic biomonitoring programmes conducted to assess the ecological health of temporary rivers, and suggests that biomonitoring indices developed for perennial rivers have potential for adaptation and use during dry phases. The aquatic bias of available data highlights characterization of the terrestrial assemblages inhabiting dry channels as a research priority.

Assessment
Drying
Aquatic-terrestrial Linkage

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Presenters/Authors

Rachel Stubbington (), Nottingham Trent University, rachel.stubbington@ntu.ac.uk;