HR: 16:30h
AN: NB24D-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Relations between Flow Regime and Invertebrate Communities in Upland Rivers of the Latrobe Basin, Victoria, Australia.
AU: * Stewardson, M
EM: mjstew@unimelb.edu.au
AF: CRC for Catchment Hydrology and SAGES, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic 3010 Austria
AU: Metzeling, L
EM: Leon.Metzeling@epa.vic.gov.au
AF: CRCFE and EPA Victoria, Ernest Jones Dr, Macleod, Vic 3085 Austria
AB: There has been very little success in establishing quantitative relations between flow regime and invertebrate community composition in Australian rivers. Habitat template theory proposes that species with similar traits occupy a similar habitat type. This means that communities may be characterised by their traits when investigating relations with environmental variables such as flow. Indeed the dominance of certain traits may be more predictable than abundance of individual taxa. Unfortunately the traits of many aquatic communities, such as aquatic invertebrates in Australia, are poorly known. This paper presents an approach to establishing a relation between flow and these communities drawing on habitat template theory. Biological indices reflecting the composition of invertebrate community are developed based on an assumed trait response to hydraulic variables (Froude number and Reynolds number) at the scale of individual invertebrate samples for eight sites in the upper Latrobe basin in south-east Australia. Component weights are derived for each taxa to describe their response to hydraulic conditions. The derived indices are tested using independent data and found to predict the responses of invertebrate community at the reach-scale to changes in flow through time. Component weights for each taxa are discussed in relation to known traits of some taxa.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1824 Geomorphology (1625)
DE: 1845 Limnology
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly