Muddy water and a broken water main were the highlights of the Fall stream monitoring last Saturday, October 22. No sooner had our volunteers started to sample than the water started to rise and turn muddy. A woman passing by told us that there had been a water main break at a construction site upstream from our spot. With only three-quarters of the nettings complete, we abandon the water for safer ground.
While our protocol specifies 20 nettings from a variety of types creek locations, we proceeded and sorted the nettings we had done. The total count was low (72 organisms) and the diversity of species was also a little lower than we expected (6 species). This computes to an Index Biological Integrity (ANS IBI) Score of 1 or POOR. Last fall, the score was 2.1 with 112 organisms counted. (The protocol allows us to stop counting after we find 100.)
From our field report:
Needless to say our numbers are low, skewed and incomplete, i.e. only had 16 samplings and at least 2 or 3 occurred during the flood.
Our count - 72
Aquatic worms - 3
Planarians - 47
Aquatic showbugs – 10
Chronomidae (midges) - 2
Black flies - 8
Baetis - small minnow mayflies - 2But we might have set a record for planaria numbers!
However, our public outreach component was as strong as ever. One family who had just moved here from Scotland spent at least an hour with us going through the sample buckets and peering at the organisms under our microscopes.
Thank you to our wonderful stream monitoring team and the newest member, 14-year old Averill Simone. Thank you always to Frank Sanford who leads the effort and Woody Stanley who crunches the numbers.
