Rapid assessment of rivers using macroinvertebrates: Case studies in the Nepean River and Blue Mountains, NSW

Abstract

Two sets of data were used to evaluate the procedure for rapid assessment of rivers described by Chessman (1995): (i) 72 samples from four habitats at 27 sites on the Nepean River and tributaries; and (ii) 41 riffle samples from the Blue Mountains. In the Nepean system all the sites had moderate anthropogenic disturbance but none had gross organic pollution. There were, however, conductivity differences related to mixed sandstone and shale lithology. The sites differed widely in natural physical attributes such as stream order (2-6) and altitude (40-600 m). The Blue Mountains data included sites with little or no anthropogenic disturbance and sites greatly affected by organic pollution. There was again a wide range of altitudes (15-1000 m) but stream orders were more restricted (1-4). The occurrence of macroinvertebrate families was analysed using cluster analysis (TWINSPAN) and ordination (semi-strong hybrid multidimensional scaling). Relationships between the pattems observed, the SIGNAL biotic index, and physical and chemical data were investigated. The Nepean data showed that the sample size of 100 animals used in the rapid procedure was sufficient to reveal natural distribution patterns in the communities, and that SIGNAL was essentially independent of these pattems. In the Blue Mountains, water pollution had a greater effect on macroinvertebrate communities than the physical habitat, and SIGNAL distinguished sites with differing levels of pollution.

Measuring the responses of macroinvertebrate communities to water pollution: a comparison of multivariate approaches, biotic and diversity indices

“…Multivariate approaches are being increasingly used for biological monitoring of water quality (Bargos et al, 1990;Griffiths, 1991;Rutt et al, 1993;Pusey et al, 1994;Growns et al, 1995;Wright et al, 1995). The techniques take each species as a variable, and they are therefore able to detect subtle changes of community structure (Norris & Georges, 1993).…”

Macroinvertebrate response to stream restoration by large wood addition

“…Multi-habitat sampling was carried out for approximately 15 min at each site on each date. Below, we have designated the three types of quantitative samples as samples from different 'habitat types' rather than the more traditional term, 'substrates', in recognition of the fact that these samples not only represent different surfaces but different spatial locations in the stream (Growns et al, 1995;Rabeni et al, 2002).…”

Macroinvertebrate functional organization and water quality in a large arid river from Patagonia (Argentina)

“…The present study was not optimal since could not include oxygen content and biochemical oxygen demand data. Nevertheless, all indexes were relatively sensitive to increases of nutrients enrichment, conductivity and turbidity (Growns et al 1995, Pizzolón & Miserendino 2001) and responded positively with altitude and substrate size (Lang & Reymond 1995, Chessman et al 1997). …”