Macroinvertebrate Bio-Assessment of Camp and Pine Creeks, Zumwalt Prairie Preserve 2019
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Macroinvertebrate Bio-Assessment of Camp and Pine creeks, Zumwalt Prairie Preserve 2019 c) a) b) d) e) f) a) Suwallia (stonefly) adult: troutnut.com b) Suwallia nymph: bugguide.net c) Chironomidae (midge) adult: Wikipedia.com d) Chironomidae larvae: Alamy.com e) Limnephilus (caddisfly) adult: bugguide.net f) Limnephilus larvae: bugguide.net Prepared for: The Nature Conservancy NE Oregon Field Office Enterprise, OR 97828 Prepared by: David Wooster and Sandra DeBano Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center Oregon State University Hermiston, OR 97838 1 Summary Macroinvertebrates were sampled at 16 reaches on Camp Creek and seven reaches on Pine Creek in May 2019. Macroinvertebrates have been sampled at Camp Creek since 2006 and at Pine Creek since 2007. 2019 was the fourth post-restoration period of sampling on Camp Creek and the fifth on Pine Creek. One hundred and two aquatic macroinvertebrate taxa have been identified from the preserve. Despite having sampled macroinvertebrate for seven years on the preserve, we continue to find new taxa. In 2019, five new taxa were identified. Precipitation at the Zumwalt prairie has varied across the sampling years, with the highest amounts of precipitation occurring in post-restoration years. This pattern of precipitation confounds the effects of restoration with rainfall. This confounding was supported by ordination analyses which revealed that the amount of precipitation prior to sampling was an important driver of macroinvertebrate assemblage composition. Have Camp Creek and Pine Creek improved in condition? The main focus of our sampling was to determine whether conditions in Camp Creek and Pine Creek have improved through time based upon macroinvertebrate assemblages. To control for the confounding effect of precipitation we conducted mixed models that used precipitation as a covariate. Response variables were 12 macroinvertebrate metrics related to stream reach condition. Mixed models using time period as a categorical variable (before versus after restoration) revealed that the relative abundance of EPT (Ephemeroptera-Plecoptera-Trichoptera) and sensitive taxa were greater after restoration than before at Camp Creek, indicating an improvement in stream reach conditions after restoration. At Pine Creek, functional feeding group evenness increased after restoration also indicating an improvement in conditions. Ecosystems often show a lag time between changes in land management and response. In addition, the response of ecosystems can be gradual, increasing through time. Therefore, a consideration of time as a continuous variable is an additional method of considering restoration impacts, and a second set of mixed models were conducted with year as a continuous variable. Macroinvertebrate metrics were more sensitive to this analysis, with five metrics indicating an improvement in stream reach condition through time at Camp Creek and three metrics indicating positive changes at Pine Creek. In addition to the mixed models, we tracked the distribution of specific sensitive taxa and found that three of six taxa in Camp Creek have increased their distribution through time and the only sensitive taxa with appropriate data has increased its distribution through time at Pine Creek. Taken all together these results strongly indicate an improvement in the conditions at Camp Creek and Pine Creek and this is likely the result of restoration actions taken in 2010. Are there specific reaches that are consistently the highest quality? Based on macroinvertebrate metrics, five reaches at Camp Creek and two reaches at Pine Creek were consistently in the highest quality of all reaches sampled. At both creeks, these reaches were characterized by a substrate that was low in silt and high in cobble. We examined whether these high quality reaches were high in the drainage area. Streams tend to accumulate upstream anthropogenic effects, resulting in downstream gradient of increasingly worse conditions. However, in direct contrast to this, the five best-condition reaches at Camp Creek were all low in 2 the drainage area sampled. A likely explanation is that the downstream reaches tend to have higher discharge, resulting in a relatively silt-free substrate. This silt-free substrate is favored by many macroinvertebrate taxa that are indicative of good quality. Do cattle/elk exclosures and riparian plantings have a positive impact on stream reach condition? Several reaches and their surrounding area at both Camp and Pine creeks are enclosed by cattle/elk fencing. An examination of two enclosed reaches at Camp Creek revealed that the macroinvertebrate community within these reaches does not appear to have changes in any consistent fashion, suggesting that the exclosures have not had an effect on the stream reaches. However, the stream environment within these two exclosures has changed since the exclosures were constructed. The amount of silty substrate decreased and the amount of riparian shade increased at the two exclosure reaches after exclosure construction. Riparian shade at both reaches has increased through time as the riparian trees planted start to mature. It is not clear why the macroinvertebrate assemblage did not respond to these changes in their environment. It is possible that there is a time lag between a change in the stream environment and a response by macroinvertebrates and that time lag has not passed yet. If this is true, we expect to see macroinvertebrate responses in the future. It is also possible that the exclosed reaches are simply too small to elicit a macroinvertebrate response. Are macroinvertebrate assemblages responding to cattle grazing? Cattle grazing intensity had a negative impact on macroinvertebrate assemblages, particularly taxa richness. Our measure of grazing intensity was based on the number of years a pasture was grazed or not, it did not take into account the number of AUMs or the amount of access cattle had to the creek. Continued macroinvertebrate monitoring will be important particularly at the exclosure reaches where riparian plantings are still maturing and influencing the stream environment. In addition, obtaining more detailed metrics of cattle grazing intensity would make our understanding of how the Nature Conservancy grazing regimen affects the Zumwalt Prairie streams. 3 Introduction The aquatic macroinvertebrate assessment of the Camp and Pine Creek drainages described in this report is provided to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) partially through cooperation with Oregon State University and partially through a contract with David Wooster. In May 2019, macroinvertebrates were collected at 16 sites on Camp Creek and seven sites on Pine Creek within The Nature Conservancy’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve, Wallowa County, Oregon (Figure 1). The main objective of the ongoing macroinvertebrate assessment is to examine changes in stream reach condition across a period of time that spans restoration actions on both Camp Creek and Pine Creek. Restoration actions on Camp Creek were quite extensive and involved the removal of 11 earthen dams constructed by previous landowners to pond water for cattle, planting of over 10,000 native shrubs along the creek, improving the fencing around the creek, and changing cattle management in pastures along the creek (Fields 2011). Actions on Pine Creek were less extensive and included fencing the riparian corridor to keep cattle off the creek and planting ~7,000 native shrubs (Fields 2011). Restoration on Camp Creek occurred in 2010 and on Pine Creek in 2008. Camp Creek was sampled for three years prior to restoration (2006, 2007, and 2008) and the sampling in 2019 represents the fourth post-restoration sampling session spanning eight years (2011, 2013, 2016, and 2019). The 2019 sampling on Pine Creek represents the fifth session of macroinvertebrate sampling in that drainage and the fourth session post-restoration (the other years were 2007, 2011, 2013, and 2016). The analysis of aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblage structure provides a useful means of assessing stream reach condition and tracking changes in condition through time. Macroinvertebrates are particularly good candidates for assessing water quality and ecological condition for several reasons. First, a large amount of information exists regarding the sensitivity of different taxa to human impacts (e.g., Johnson et al. 1993, Barbour et al. 1999). Therefore, changes in the abundances of these taxa represent changes in stream reach condition. Second, the lifespan of most macroinvertebrates (one year) is long enough to incorporate impacts across multiple seasons, but short enough to make tracking population changes resulting from management actions feasible. Third, the home range size of many macroinvertebrates is small and thus populations might respond to local environmental conditions such as those resulting from stream restoration. The main objective of the ongoing macroinvertebrate assessment is to examine changes in stream reach condition across a period of time that spans restoration actions on both Camp Creek and Pine Creek. Restoration actions on Camp Creek were quite extensive and involved the removal of 11 earthen dams constructed by previous landowners to pond water for cattle, planting of over 10,000 native shrubs along the creek, improving the fencing around the creek, and changing cattle management in pastures along the creek (Fields 2011). Actions on Pine Creek were less extensive and included fencing the riparian corridor to keep cattle off the creek