HR: 1330h
AN: NB33T-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Are preiphyton communities useful for biomonitoring in the Fraser River, British Columbia, Canada?
AU: * Mazor, R D
EM: rmazor@nature.berkeley.edu
AF: University of California, Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, 137 Mulford Hall &35;3114, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AU: Resh, V H
EM: vresh@nature.berkeley.edu
AF: University of California, Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, 137 Mulford Hall &35;3114, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AB: To investigate the relationship between benthic algal communities and environmental variables, we sampled periphyton communities at 248 sites (198 reference and 50 disturbed) in the Fraser River, British Columbia, Canada between 1994 and 1996. 121 species (61 genera) were collected, of which 81 species (32 genera) were diatoms, indicating that the Fraser River may be depauperate relative to other temperate rivers. Communities at disturbed and reference sites were weakly but significantly different. Cluster analysis identified 5 groups, one of which contained most (60%) of the disturbed sites; however, all groups were dominated by reference sites (66-95%). All replicates of sites were assigned to the same group 65% of the time. NMS ordination showed that disturbance had only a weak relationship to community structure; many water column variables (TKN, suspended C, suspended N, alkalinity, conductivity, total phosphorous, chlorophyll a) showed stronger relationships. These results indicate that periphyton communities may have limited use for biomonitoring in the Fraser River because of low diversity, small differences between disturbed and undisturbed communities, and weak relationship to variables useful in modeling habitat relationships.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 9350 North America
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
DE: 9902 NABS Student Award Applied Research
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly