HR: 14:15h
AN: NB23B-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Recovery of Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Communities From Drought in Georgia Piedmont Headwater Streams.
AU: * Churchel, M A
EM: mchurchel@yahoo.com
AF: Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30606 United States
AU: Batzer, D P
EM: dbatzer@bugs.ent.uga.edu
AF: Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30606 United States
AB: Drought is an important disturbance in stream ecosystems. From 1998-2002, Georgia suffered a major drought, ending in September 2002, when a tropical storm dumped almost 38 cm of rain. During the drought, many headwater streams experienced reduced flows or dried completely, affording an opportunity to study the recovery of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. Six headwater streams in protected landscapes of the Georgia Piedmont were selected and paired based on similarities in physical parameters (sandy, bedrock, or mixed substrate). Each pair consisted of a stream that dried completely during the drought and one that retained at least some surface water. Riffles were sampled with a core sampler, runs and pools were sampled with a Hess sampler, and wood was sampled by randomly collecting every fifth piece of at least 5 cm diameter. Sampling occurred every four weeks for the first three months following the September 2002 re-flooding of streams and then every three months until the following November. Cluster analyses were used to assess the relative effects of drought history (dried or continually wet), stream condition, and temporal change.
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 4804 Benthic processes/benthos
DE: 4815 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly