Poster Details
EXPLORING DRIFT-BENTHOS RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN A 3RD ORDER REDWOOD STREAM ON CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST
Invertebrate drift, or the transport of invertebrate biomass within the water column, is an important ecosystem process within lotic environments. Multiple studies have explored the direct relationships between drifting invertebrates and source populations upstream. Conclusions from these studies suggest that drift concentrations should increase in proportion to invertebrate densities upstream, however little is known about the drift-benthos relationship within coastal redwood streams. We conducted a study to explore the effects of upstream benthic density and food resources on invertebrate drift composition and frequency. Preliminary results from this study have found that drift within our study system is composed of primarily of invertebrate families with a high propensity to drift (i.e. Baetidae, Simullids, and Chironomid sp.). We predict that the composition of our benthos samples will be a good proxy for estimating invertebrates within the drift
Nicholas Macias (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Santa Cruz, niamacia@ucsc.edu;
Eric Palkovacs (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California - Santa Cruz, epalkova@ucsc.edu;
Laura Bajurin (Primary Presenter/Author,Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Santa Cruz, lbajurin@ucsc.edu;