2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
5/27/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Bioassessment of Riparian Ecosystems After Megafire in Northern Utah | Virtual Platform
Bioassessment of Riparian Ecosystems After Megafire in Northern Utah
In 2018, a 610-km² megafire complex and residual storms following Hurricane Rosa triggered flash flooding and debris flows throughout the Spanish Fork River (Utah) watershed. This resulted in increased runoff, deposited sediment, and altered water chemistry. Aquatic macroinvertebrates are vital in riparian and terrestrial food webs and are important indicators of ecosystem health. To understand how increasing wildfire occurrence influences macroinvertebrate richness, we compare multiple biomonitoring metrics acquired from data collected from 6 sites in 3-month increments between August 2019 and August 2020. Three sites were burned and 3 sites were unburned. The size of the megafire allows for the testing of multiple hypotheses about ecosystem recovery across elevational diversity and vegetation gradients. We compare macroinvertebrate richness among these sites via morphological classification of subsampled D-net kick samples. We use these data to generate a new understanding of freshwater ecosystem disturbances resulting from large fire complexes and inform watershed management by quantifying the rate of recolonization of burned streams with linkage between riparian ecosystem health and macroinvertebrate abundance. Preliminary findings show no obvious difference between burned and unburned site rank abundance or species richness.
- Stream restoration
- Climate change
- Biodiversity
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Presenters/Authors
Anna Eichert
(), Brigham Young University, annaeichert3@gmail.com;
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Riley Nelson
(), Brigham Young University, rileynelson@byu.edu;
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Paul Frandsen
(), Brigham Young University, paul_frandsen@byu.edu;
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