Abstract
Wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of eastern North Dakota, USA are often overgrown with cattails (Typha spp), providing habitat crop-depredating blackbirds and impeding use by waterfowl. One and two years post-treatment (1992 and 1993), we assessed the response of invertebrates to a catastrophic reduction in cattail coverage caused by glyphosate, a herbicide applied to about 14,000 ha of North Dakota’s wetlands since 1991. Numbers of Crustacea, Hydracarina, Oligochaeta, Copepoda, Ostracoda, and Cladocera were similar between treated and reference wetlands (P≥0.10), while abundance of Gastropoda was greater in the treated wetlands (P=0.10). Insect abundance was greater in treated wetlands (P<0.01), with activity traps yielding highest numbers in July. Corixidae and Chironomidae were more abundant, in treated wetlands (P<0.10), whereas Chaoboridae was consistently more plentiful in the reference wetlands (P=0.05). Our results suggest that populations of some aquatic invertebrates may be enhanced by a reduction in cattail coverage with glyphosate-based herbicide.
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Linz, G.M., Bleier, W.J., Overland, J.D. et al. Response of invertebrates to glyphosate-induced habitat alterations in wetlands. Wetlands 19, 220–227 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03161751
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03161751