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Title: Short-term disturbance effects of outdoor education stream classes on aquatic macroinvertebrates

Author
item BOSSLEY, JON - Mount Vernon Nazarene University
item Smiley, Peter

Submitted to: Journal of Environmental Protection
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/27/2017
Publication Date: 10/30/2017
Citation: Bossley, J.P., Smiley, P.C. 2017. Short-term disturbance effects of outdoor education stream classes on aquatic macroinvertebrates. Journal of Environmental Protection. 8:1333-1353. https://doi.org/10.4236/jep.2017.811082.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4236/jep.2017.811082

Interpretive Summary: Agricultural streams are often used by stakeholders for their educational outreach efforts to teach students water quality assessment methods and to promote a conservation ethic towards the management of these streams. These stakeholders often use the same stream site repeatedly for their stream classes. The repeated use of the same site has the potential to cause disturbance that could negatively impact the diversity and abundance of aquatic macroinvertebrates. However, the impact of stream classes on the short term temporal trends on aquatic macroinvertebrates has not been evaluated. We conducted a field experiment to quantify if the diversity and abundance of aquatic macroinvertebrates differed diurnally and daily within a site repeatedly subjected to outdoor education stream classes and to determine if diversity and abundance trends differed daily between the impacted site and an undisturbed site. Our study is the first to evaluate the impact of outdoor education stream classes on short term temporal trends of the diversity and abundance of aquatic macroinvertebrates. We did not observe a difference in diversity and abundance of macroinvertebrates diurnally or daily within the impacted riffle. We found that macroinvertebrate abundance and the abundance of macroinvertebrates adapted to clinging onto the stream bottom were greater in the undisturbed site than the site subjected to outdoor education stream classes. We also documented that the short term trend in the abundance of macroinvertebrates adapted to clinging on the stream bottom differed between the undisturbed site and the site repeatedly subjected to stream classes. Our results indicate that outdoor education centers should avoid repeatedly using the same stream site for their educational efforts to avoid negatively impacting aquatic macroinvertebrates. Our results also indicate that human usage of agricultural streams for education can negatively impact the aquatic organisms living in agricultural streams. These results will assist state agencies, federal agencies, non-profit groups, and consulting agencies involved with conservation and management of agricultural watersheds.

Technical Abstract: Outdoor education programs frequently offer stream classes that teach students how to assess water quality based on the composition of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. Repeatedly using the same site for stream classes can cause disturbance that could negatively impact aquatic macroinvertebrates. However, the impact of outdoor education stream classes on short term temporal trends of aquatic macroinvertebrates has not been evaluated. Our objective was to quantify whether outdoor education stream classes caused localized and short term (i.e., diurnal and daily) impacts on the aquatic macroinvertebrate community. We sampled aquatic macroinvertebrates over a five day period in May 2014 from an impacted riffle subjected to repeated substrate disturbance by outdoor education stream classes and an undisturbed riffle within an agricultural stream in central Ohio. We did not observe a difference in macroinvertebrate community response variables diurnally or daily within the impacted riffle as part of our within riffle analysis. We documented that macroinvertebrate abundance and dorsoventrally flattened clinger abundance was greater within the unimpacted riffle than the impacted riffle. Macroinvertebrate evenness was greater in the impacted riffle than the unimpacted riffle. Percent clingers was greater on Monday than Friday in the impacted riffle and was greater on Friday than Monday in the unimpacted riffle. Our results indicated that outdoor education stream classes do not alter short term temporal trends of macroinvertebrate community structure within an impacted riffle, but the stream classes resulted in differences in community structure between an impacted and unimpacted riffle. Our results suggest that outdoor education centers should avoid repeatedly using the same site for their stream classes to prevent negatively impacting aquatic macroinvertebrates.