2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/26/2021 | 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM | The Efficacy of Best Management Practices on Macroinvertebrate Structure and Function: A Review | Virtual Platform

The Efficacy of Best Management Practices on Macroinvertebrate Structure and Function: A Review

The Chesapeake Bay is one of the largest estuaries in the world, sustaining the economies of hundreds of communities and providing habitat for more than 3000 migratory and residential species, yet degraded by sediment and nutrients in the upper watershed. As stakeholders restore Chesapeake streams, programs focused on mitigating the effects of anthropogenic threats, like agriculture, suffer knowledge gaps about how abiotic alterations influence macroinvertebrate biotic responses. To better understand these relationships, we compiled and summarized 41 research papers of best management practices (BMPs) that aim to mitigate alterations affecting macroinvertebrate assemblages. We predicted these studies would show that, in general, BMPs would ameliorate alterations, resulting in positive macroinvertebrate responses across different land uses. The most common BMPs (55%) focused on restoring riparian areas. Sediment (39%) and nutrients (24%) were the most common alterations targeted for improvement, and richness was the most common positive macroinvertebrate response (22%). Despite 331 documented macroinvertebrate structural responses to BMPs across 41 papers, 102 focused on functional proxies, and only 2 examined function. We will use these larger trends to guide future research on macroinvertebrate functional responses to BMPs in Chesapeake Bay headwater streams.

Anthropogenic
Biodiversity
Land use

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Presenters/Authors

Abigail Belvin (), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University , abigail.belvin@gmail.com;