Wednesday, May 20, 2015
10:30 - 12:00

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10:30 - 10:45: / 103C MODELING THE RESPONSE OF CLIMATE-SENSITIVE, AQUATIC INSECT TRAITS TO MULTIPLE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES USING A BAYESIAN PATH MODEL

5/20/2015  |   10:30 - 10:45   |  103C

MODELING THE RESPONSE OF CLIMATE-SENSITIVE, AQUATIC INSECT TRAITS TO MULTIPLE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES USING A BAYESIAN PATH MODEL Two aquatic insect trait groups, cold stenotherms (taxa found only in cold water) and erosional obligates (taxa found only in fast flowing water habitat), have been used to assess the effect of climate change on stream macroinvertebrate communities, but most studies have not assessed regional variation in trait responses to current climate conditions and the contribution of non-climatic variables (e.g., habitat, geomorphology) on climate-sensitive trait distributions. We developed a Bayesian path model for 251 sites in the western United States to determine how cold stenotherm and erosional obligate distributions are influenced by climatic and non-climatic variables in eight climatic ecoregions. The models accounted for 40-85% of variation in cold stenotherm distributions in most ecoregions, but only accounted for 10-20% of the variation in erosional obligate distributions. Temperature and runoff drove distributions of cold stenotherms in the three temperate ecoregions while other non-climatic variables drove cold stenotherm distributions in some warmer ecoregions. Our results indicate that cold stenotherms may be at their thermal limits in warmer ecoregions and are selecting non-climatic stream conditions that mitigate the effect of high temperatures.

Matthew Pyne (Primary Presenter/Author), Lamar University, mattpyne@hotmail.com;


LeRoy Poff (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Colorado State University, n.poff@rams.colostate.edu;


10:45 - 11:00: / 103C EVALUATION OF AGENCY AND VOLUNTEER STREAM MONITORING PROTOCOLS USING MACROINVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGES

5/20/2015  |   10:45 - 11:00   |  103C

EVALUATION OF AGENCY AND VOLUNTEER STREAM MONITORING PROTOCOLS USING MACROINVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGES Professional stream assessments can be both time and cost intensive. Many states have developed citizen science programs in efforts to provide reliable data to supplement agency assessments. To test how two of these protocols and their conclusions compare, we sampled 16 sites in seven streams within east central Illinois using two different techniques: Illinois RiverWatch and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA). The two techniques resulted in different assemblage structures (PERMANOVA; p=0.0010). Neither physical habitat score, as assessed using Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI), nor RiverWatch-level Macroinvertebrate Biotic Index (MBI) scores were correlated with most indices utilized by IEPA to determine stream health. These differences are likely due to different microhabitats sampled while following the two protocols. In the majority of qualitative disagreements, Illinois RiverWatch overestimated stream quality compared to IEPA. Additionally, seasonal variation was evident between spring and fall Illinois RiverWatch samples with differing assemblage structure (PERMANOVA; p=0.0020), and generally lower MBI scores in fall representing higher quality. We are currently examining the effects of taxonomic resolution as well as evaluating other metrics to increase qualitative agreement between techniques.

David Petry (Primary Presenter/Author), Eastern Illinois University, dwpetry@eiu.edu;


Robert Colombo (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Eastern Illinois University, recolombo@eiu.edu;


Charles Pederson (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Eastern Illinois University , clpederson@eiu.edu;


Jeffrey Laursen (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Eastern Illinois University , jrlaursen@eiu.edu;


11:00 - 11:15: / 103C EFFECTS OF TAXONOMIC HARMONIZATION AND FIXED-COUNT SUBSAMPLING ON COMPARABILITY OF INVERTEBRATE DATA FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES

5/20/2015  |   11:00 - 11:15   |  103C

EFFECTS OF TAXONOMIC HARMONIZATION AND FIXED-COUNT SUBSAMPLING ON COMPARABILITY OF INVERTEBRATE DATA FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES Regional investigations of invertebrate responses to perturbation often involve combining data from multiple sources that use different methods to collect and process samples. We evaluated the effects of harmonizing taxonomy and subsample size on the comparability of data from nine sources differing in levels of identification (species, genus, family) and subsample sizes (100, 200, 300, and > 300 fixed counts). Two approaches to taxonomic harmonization were compared: (1) rolling up taxa to genus and (2) rolling up taxa to the lowest taxonomic level across sources. Metrics and Bray-Curtis similarities were calculated and compared on the basis of 25, 100-count subsamples. Harmonizing taxonomy and standardizing to a 100 fixed-count subsample significantly increased comparability among samples with taxonomic harmonization having much larger effects on comparability among samples than did standardizing to a common subsample size. Rolling up taxa to genus was not as effective as the more labor intensive taxon-by-taxon comparison of the lowest level used across sources. Data from different sources can be processed to increase comparability, but great care needs to be exercised in harmonizing the taxonomy across data sources.

Thomas Cuffney (Primary Presenter/Author), U.S. Geological Survey, South Atlantic Water Science Center, 3916 Sunset Ridge Rd., Raleigh, NC 27607, tcuffney@usgs.gov;


Jonathan Kennen (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), U.S. Geological Survey, New Jersey Water Science Center, 3450 Princeton Pike, Suite 110, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, jgkennen@usgs.gov;


11:15 - 11:30: / 103C GEOGRAPHIC EXTENSION OF BENTHIC INVERTEBRATE RCA BIOASSESSMENTS: HOW FAR CAN WE GO?

5/20/2015  |   11:15 - 11:30   |  103C

GEOGRAPHIC EXTENSION OF BENTHIC INVERTEBRATE RCA BIOASSESSMENTS: HOW FAR CAN WE GO? Benthic invertebrate RCA bioassessments are generally developed using reference sites within a localized area such as a watershed or ecoregion. If such reference data can be used to assess test sites that lie outside their geographic scope, it would reduce the need to collect time-consuming and costly reference site data. In this study, we examined invertebrate and environmental data to assess concordance of benthic communities and develop predictive models using data from three areas in Canada: the Attawapiskat River watershed in northern Ontario, the Fraser River watershed in British Columbia, and the Yukon River watershed. RCA bioassessments were developed based on reference sites from the individual watersheds and on pooled data from the three. The effectiveness of assessments was evaluated using a common set of artificially impaired sites. The results of this study reveal that assessments using reference sites from other watersheds perform similarly to those using only local reference data, suggesting that reference sites sampled in one watershed could be “exported” for effective bioassessment in other adjacent or more distant watersheds.

Nicole-Marie Novodvorsky (Primary Presenter/Author), Laurentian University, nnovodvo@gmail.com;


John L Bailey (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, jbailey@laurentian.ca;


Trefor Reynoldson (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), GHOST Environmental Consulting, trefor.reynoldson@gmail.com;


11:30 - 11:45: / 103C CAN DNA BASED MONITORING OF MACROZOOBENTHOS DELIVER ABUNDANCE DATA? TESTING PRIMER BIAS AND BIOMASS - SEQUENCE RELATIONSHIPS WITH A NOVEL METABARCODING PROTOCOL

5/20/2015  |   11:30 - 11:45   |  103C

CAN DNA BASED MONITORING OF MACROZOOBENTHOS DELIVER ABUNDANCE DATA? TESTING PRIMER BIAS AND BIOMASS - SEQUENCE RELATIONSHIPS WITH A NOVEL METABARCODING PROTOCOL Metabarcoding combines DNA barcoding with next generation sequencing to reliably identify hundreds of specimens at once. However, detection rates in species-rich invertebrate samples as well as the capability to quantify biomass or species abundances have not been tested. We developed a novel Cytochrome c Oxidase 1 metabarcoding protocol and performed two controlled Illumina MiSeq experiments (each with 10 replicates). In the first experiment we used 31 specimens of a single stonefly species that differed across four orders of magnitude in biomass. We found a clear biomass - sequence abundance relationship but even smallest specimens were reliably detected. In the second experiment recovery of 52 different freshwater invertebrate taxa was tested using similar biomass as templates. With a single primer pair we could recover 83% of the taxa. However, sequence abundance varied by four orders magnitudes between taxa. Our experiments show that although biomass can be estimated if single species are present in a sample, reliable estimates from environmental samples are impossible due to primer bias. Thus, DNA-based ecosystem assessments should rely on presence-absence rather than abundance data.

Vasco Elbrecht (Primary Presenter/Author), Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (University of Guelph), elbrecht@uoguelph.ca;


Florian Leese (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of Duisburg-Essen, florian.leese@uni-due.de;