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(MIBI) for Rivers and Streams of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Development of a Macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity (MIBI) for Rivers and Streams of the Upper Mississippi River Basin By John Genet and Joel Chirhart Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Biological Monitoring Program St Paul, Minnesota 2004 CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1 OBJECTIVES OF BIOLOGICAL MONITORING PROGRAM................................................................................................. 1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................... 2 II. THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN............................................................................................................................. 2 THE MACROINVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGE ....................................................................................................................... 2 III. M-IBI SAMPLING METHOD ................................................................................................................................................ 2 SAMPLE REACH DETERMINATION ...................................................................................................................................... 2 BENTHIC SAMPLING TECHNIQUE....................................................................................................................................... 3 LABORATORY SAMPLE PROCESSING.................................................................................................................................. 4 IV. SITE CHARACTERIZATION................................................................................................................................................ 4 QUANTIFYING HUMAN DISTURBANCE............................................................................................................................... 4 STREAM CLASSIFICATION..................................................................................................................................................... 4 EVALUATING ALTERNATIVE CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES............................................................................................... 5 V. THE METRICS......................................................................................................................................................................... 7 METRIC SELECTION............................................................................................................................................................... 7 UPPER MISSISSIPPI M-IBI METRICS.................................................................................................................................... 9 SCORING METRICS................................................................................................................................................................. 9 VI. CALCULATION AND INTERPRETATION OF M-IBI SCORES........................................................................................ 9 VII. DISCUSSION....................................................................................................................................................................... 10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 LITERATURE CITED ................................................................................................................................................................ 13 APPENDIX A – MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITY ATTRIBUTES .......................................................................... 15 APPENDIX B – UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN SAMPLING SITES ............................................................................ 18 Upper Mississippi River Basin Macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity ii FIGURES Page # Figure 1. Number of Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, and Plecoptera taxa (EPT) versus drainage area (mi2). Vertical line represents size classification break point…………………………..7 Figure 2. Hypothetical CDFs illustrating the three methods used for scoring metrics: a) natural breaks, b) trisection of range, and c) trisection of 95th percentile…………………………...10 TABLES Table 1. Strength of two classification schemes for macroinvertebrate assemblages from 29 least-impaired sites in the UMRB. Classification strength (CS) = [B - W]. For tests of no class structure all resulting P-values were < 0.05 unless noted otherwise……………...6 Table 2. Mean and standard error of metric values for each of the three M-IBIs, including results of Mann-Whitney U tests. Spearman Rank correlation coefficients (rs) represent relationship between metric value and composite disturbance score (watershed + habitat) unless otherwise noted. All correlation coefficients are significant at α = 0.05 level……………………………………………………………………………..8 Table 3. Scoring criteria for the three separate M-IBIs developed for the Upper Mississippi River Basin………………………………………………………………………………...11 Table 4. Spearman Rank correlation coefficients (rs) for the relationship between M-IBI score and various measures of disturbance. All P values < 0.001 unless noted otherwise…………………………………………………………………………………………12 Upper Mississippi River Basin Macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity iii Development of a Macroinvertebrate Index of Biotic Integrity (M-IBI) for Rivers and Streams of the Upper Mississippi River Basin the effects of both physical and chemical I. INTRODUCTION stressors. Proper management of river and stream systems must be predicated upon a Rivers and streams serve many functions in comprehensive monitoring strategy that is able to today’s society including serving as a source of detect degradation in streams due to human food and water, a mode of transportation for disturbance. much of our crops and material goods and as a recreational and aesthetically pleasing resource In recent years, scientists have developed for many people. The innumerable functional methods to quantify and interpret the results of and aesthetic qualities of rivers and streams biological surveys, allowing water-quality create pressures on the resource that are managers and policy makers to make informed exacerbated by an expanding human population. decisions concerning rivers and streams. The Watersheds that were once mainly forested have Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) was first been altered for the social and economic benefit developed in the early 1980’s using attributes of of today’s society. The degradation of the fish community in midwestern streams (Karr Minnesota’s rivers comes from numerous 1981). This method has subsequently been sources including chemical pollutants from adapted for use throughout the country for municipal and industrial point source discharges; multiple assemblages (e.g., aquatic agricultural runoff of pesticides, nutrients, and macroinvertebrates, periphyton) in various sediment; hydrologic alteration from stream aquatic systems (e.g., streams, wetlands). The channelization, dams, and artificial drainage; and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), habitat alteration from agriculture and urban Biological Monitoring Unit has begun encroachment. To ensure the integrity of our development of statewide biological criteria for rivers and streams we must understand the Minnesota’s rivers and streams utilizing fish and relationship between human induced macroinvertebrate IBIs. There are numerous disturbances and their affect on aquatic advantages to using macroinvertebrates and fish resources. in a water quality monitoring program (Barbour et al. 1999). For many years we have managed human impact on stream systems by restricting the amount and OBJECTIVES OF BIOLOGICAL kinds of chemicals that enter them. Federal and MONITORING PROGRAM state government agencies have developed and enforced water quality standards to ensure that The MPCA’s Biological Monitoring Program chemical concentrations in our streams do not has several objectives, including: exceed certain limits. But while we have been largely successful in limiting chemical pollution • to define and document statewide baseline sources we have, in many respects, failed to conditions of instream macroinvertebrate recognize the effects that landscape alteration and fish communities and non-point pollution have on river and stream quality. Watershed disturbances from urban, • to measure spatial and temporal variability residential, and agricultural development of population and community attributes contribute to an overall decrease in the biological • to develop regional indices of biological integrity of our rivers and streams (e.g., road integrity based on community similarity, building, stream channelization, alteration of the beginning with each of Minnesota’s ten stream’s riparian zone, and many others). It is major river basins with the intent of increasingly apparent that monitoring activities developing statewide biological criteria in cannot focus on chemical indicators alone, but the future must instead focus on indicators that integrate Upper Mississippi River Basin Macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity 1 • to assess the condition of Minnesota’s rivers an underestimate of the actual number of species and streams collected as most identifications
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