Janet Garcia Ayesha Burdett
The Effects of Sediment Disturbance on Invertebrate Communities at the Confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Salado Janet Garcia Ayesha Burdett Rio Grande Agricultural irrigation
Riparian habitat forvarious species Rio Grande silvery minnow Southwestern willowflycatcher Lotic ecosystem Sandy composition Many tributaries feed it Explain lotic Move minnow under riparian and add another species Transition: tributaries.such as the rio salado found here in this part of the state Rio Salado Confluence -a confluence is where two rivers meet
-this area has a heterogeneous mix of sediments -as habitat hetero -because of these habitats it is interesting to look at how heterogenous environmets affect macroinvertebrate communites Macroinvertebrate Communities
Live in water all or mostof their life Indicators of loticecosystem health Survival H2O quality pollutants =diversity Provide energy tohigher trophic levels -they are seen as food by other larger inverts and vert species Sediment disturbance Macroinvertebrates: Periphyton: Sediment disturbance Macroinvertebrates: Periphyton: Sediment disturbance Macroinvertebrates: Periphyton: Research Question How does the heterogeneous habitat produced by the Rio Salado into the Rio Grande affect benthic macroinvertebrate communities? Work on question!!! Methods Cassie Miller Sampling sites -3 sites: upper edge of confluence, confluence, and downstream -4 sediment samples were taken from each site -at all of these sites we took samples of sediment, minverts and periphyton -define periphyton Need pics of shizz!!!!!!!! Flow velocity - To find collection sites: velocity was first determined by floating an orange 10m downstream and timing it at every site -This was done to ensure that each research site had similar flow velocity and thus similar sediment disturbance for each of the replicates at any given site Jenny Sparks Macroinvertebrate sampling
D Periphyton samplin 1cm core from a 60mlsyringe 4 cores from each ofthe 12 sample sites Preserved in ethanol Sorted and identified 2ml core from a 60mlsyringe 3 cores from each of the12 sample sites Samples poured into 50mlcentrifuge tubes Wrapped in aluminum foilimmediately aftercollection Refrigerated Periphyton sampling 2ml core from a 60ml syringe
3 cores from each ofthe 12 sample sites Wrapped in aluminumfoil Spectrophotometer Sediment sampling Buckets of sediment Dried Sieved Spray-painted Sediment Disturbance Results Cassie Miller Organism Abundance a Taxa Diversity p-value=0.021 a Taxa Diversity Non-biting midges (Chironomidae) Mayfly (Leptohyphidae)
/0006/49614/lobodiamesa_arcmontage_b_650.jpg Non-biting midges (Chironomidae) Tricorythodes_newhabitus2.png Diptera/Ceratopogonidae/Mallochohelea16x12.jpg picture_2742_large.jpg Mayfly (Leptohyphidae) Biting midges (Ceratopogonidae) Black fly (Simuliidae) amago/nematomorpha-amago3.JPG River%20sites/Images%20for%20Site/ pseudocloeon_apache_lateral_habitus.jpg image/0010/49069/oligochaete_oratia_falls_hotel_ _98xmontage_b_650.jpg Horsehair worms (Phylum: Nematomorpha) wGqqvLsq.IMG_1191.JPG Caddisfly (Hydropsychidae) Aquatic worms (Subclass: Oligochaeta) Mayfly (Baetidae) Taxa Distribution Family Upper-confluence Confluence Downstream
Chironomidae 3.5 7.75 6.75 Oligochaeta 1 1.5 Nematomorpha 2.33 Leptohyphidae 4 Hydropsychidae Simuliidae Baetidae Ceratopogonidae Biotic Index a Explain the biotic index aka taxa tolerance values
The lower # on 0-10 scale, the more sensitive the organism aka the healthier the ecosystem Chlorophyll a Abundance Sediment Disturbance Future Directions Collect macroinvertebrate diversity data post-monsoon season to compare to pre-monsoon Post-monsoon = higher Q = more h2o= moves coarse sediments (talk) Acknowledgements Ayesha Burdett Amaris Swann Ben Specter Jenny Sparks
Morgan Matthews Cassie Miller Emily Kottler Shane Piaso Ari Ananda National Science Foundation University of New Mexico Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge Sevilleta LTER New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Add -usfws -museum logo