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Effects of fine wood on macroinvertebrate drift in four boreal forest streams

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Abstract

Most studies of stream wood have focused on pieces ≥0.1 m diameter. However, this approach may overlook an important feature of small streams, where wood <0.1 m can constitute the majority of wood pieces. We examined the effect of fine wood (FW) on local drift of stream macroinvertebrates. The study was carried out at seven sites in four boreal forest streams, from early June to mid-August 2011. This was done by anchoring bundles of FW at each site and measuring drift upstream and downstream of each bundle. We hypothesized that FW would increase drift density, biomass and diversity of aquatic invertebrates. Ten weeks after FW addition, aquatic drift density was higher downstream than upstream of FW bundles, while drift biomass and drift diversity did not differ significantly downstream and upstream of FW.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments which greatly improved the manuscript. We are also thankful to Professor Bror Jonsson and Professor Larry Greenberg for insightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We are thankful to Weronika Gorny for generous assistance in the identification of invertebrates and to Maria Malmström who provided help with all kinds of laboratory issues. We would also like to thank the landowners who kindly let us put FW in their streams and gave valuable information about liming and fishing of the streams. Funding was provided by the Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, Karlstad University.

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  1. Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, Karlstad University, 651 88, Karlstad, Sweden

    Å. Enefalk & E. Bergman

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  1. Å. Enefalk
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Correspondence to Å. Enefalk.

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Enefalk, Å., Bergman, E. Effects of fine wood on macroinvertebrate drift in four boreal forest streams. Hydrobiologia 765, 317–327 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-015-2423-x

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