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Comparison of benthic macroinvertebrate assessment methods along a salinity gradient in headwater streams

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 193, Article number: 765 (2021) Cite this article

Abstract

Benthic macroinvertebrate community assessments are used commonly to characterize aquatic systems and increasingly for identifying their impairment caused by myriad stressors. Yet sampling and enumeration methods vary, and research is needed to compare their abilities to detect macroinvertebrate community responses to specific water quality variables. A common assessment method, rapid bioassessment, uses subsampling procedures to identify a fixed number of individual organisms regardless of total sample abundance. In contrast, full-enumeration assessments typically allow for expanded community characterization resulting from higher numbers of identified organisms within a collected sample. Here, we compared these two sampling and enumeration methods and their abilities to detect benthic macroinvertebrate response to freshwater salinization, a common stressor of streams worldwide. We applied both methods in headwater streams along a salinity gradient within the coal-mining region of central Appalachia USA. Metrics of taxonomic richness, community composition, and trophic function differed between the methods, yet most metrics exhibiting significant response to SC for full-enumeration samples also did for rapid bioassessment samples. However, full-enumeration yielded taxonomic-based metrics consistently more responsive to the salinization gradient. Full-enumeration assessments may potentially provide more complete characterization of macroinvertebrate communities and their response to increased salinization, whereas the more cost-effective and widely employed rapid bioassessment method can detect community alterations along the full salinity gradient. These findings can inform decisions regarding such tradeoffs for assessments of freshwater salinization in headwater streams and highlight the need for similar research of sampling and enumeration methodology in other aquatic systems and for other stressors.

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Availability of data and material

The benthic macroinvertebrate monitoring data for this study are available as Tables A-10 through A-13 in Pence, R.A. 2019. Comparison of Quantitative and Semi-Quantitative Assessments of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Community Response to Elevated Salinity in Central Appalachian Coalfield Streams. M.S. Thesis. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/86787

Code availability

Custom R code was developed for this research project and is available upon reasonable request.

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Funding

Support for this research was provided by the Powell River Project at Virginia Tech.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rivanna Conservation Alliance, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Rachel A. Pence

  2. Trout Unlimited, Klamath Falls, OR, USA

    Thomas R. Cianciolo

  3. Parker Design Group, Roanoke, VA, USA

    Damion R. Drover

  4. Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Daniel L. McLaughlin

  5. Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, IL, USA

    David J. Soucek

  6. Department of Fish and Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Anthony J. Timpano

  7. School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Carl E. Zipper

  8. Virginia Water Resources Research Center, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Stephen H. Schoenholtz

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  1. Rachel A. Pence
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  2. Thomas R. Cianciolo
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  3. Damion R. Drover
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  4. Daniel L. McLaughlin
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Correspondence to Thomas R. Cianciolo.

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Pence, R.A., Cianciolo, T.R., Drover, D.R. et al. Comparison of benthic macroinvertebrate assessment methods along a salinity gradient in headwater streams. Environ Monit Assess 193, 765 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09556-3

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Keywords

  • Salinization
  • Rapid bioassessment
  • Full enumeration
  • Coal mining