Author Archive

Why replicate samples are required for macroinvertebrate assessments.

Friday, July 22nd, 2011
Sampling goals

I hope to get some discussion going on this topic. This one of the most common errors in application of macroinvertebrate assessments of streams and rivers. I’m going to start short and sweet, to promote readers and discussion.Note that i am working on a paper on this topic and your comments might help me head […]

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Yellowstone oil spill and macroinvertebrate ecology

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

The Exxon-Mobil oil spill on the Yellowstone River made national and international news this weekend; indeed, my first awareness of it came from the BBC news website. As a macroinvertebrate ecologist, I cannot help but reflect how the aquatic insects might be affected.  It might seem silly to worry about “bugs” when images of beautiful […]

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MacroInvertebrate Technician Job near Bozeman Montana MT!

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

I am in need of another part-time technician to help sort samples and validate data entry. The job does not pay a lot, but it is excellent experience! 

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Biological Monitoring Covariates

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

When monitoring environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities, it is useful to collect ancillary data to use as covariates. These variables can help account for natural variation in the communities studies, which helps prevent their confounding of observations. In our work with benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages, we always collect flow measures for this purpose (near-substrate flow measures […]

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Odonata: Montana & Wyoming Aquatic Entomology Notes

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
gomphid head

So I started with one of my favorite little beetles, the Haliplids, but really, honestly… the aquatic insect with which the general public is most fascinated is probably the Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies). This seems to exclude fly-fisher-persons from the category of general public (because of their obsession with mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies). But, lets […]

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More Aquatic Insects of Montana and Wyoming

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

If you are interested in using these pictures, please write me and I will provide the necessary permissions–Just be sure to give credit where it is due 🙂

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Holston River

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Time for a sort post; please forgive the mushiness I’m short of technical material. I Just got back from my Holston River Survey with the Academy of Natural Sciences.  It was great to see the Holston River again; the invertebrates are especially diverse and familiar–just like old friends. Speaking of old friends, the rest of […]

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Wyoming Educational Benthic Macroinvertebrate Project

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

If you are interested in attaining a copy of the document, post a comment here so I can gauge community interest in these wonderful aquatic insect pictures.

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Aquatic Insect Identifications

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Identification of macroinvertebrate samples from Sublette County, WY is progressing at faster pace with the addition of Esmeralda to our team.  She is a meticulous sorter and has a sorting efficiency of 97-100%!  This is impressive to me because, some of the other companies I have worked for have the sorters strive for 90%.  The […]

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~Jefferson River Montana~

Friday, June 25th, 2010

The Jefferson River Flooded last weekend. All the hay fields in the area were flooded and roads that have not been submerged in recent history became gentle rivulets. The High water is good for the Jefferson River because it has had many years of below average flows–and fine sediments have built up among the interstitial […]

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