Author Archive
Friday, July 22nd, 2011
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 […]
Read Why replicate samples are required for macroinvertebrate assessments.
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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 […]
Read Yellowstone oil spill and macroinvertebrate ecology
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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 […]
Read Biological Monitoring Covariates
Tags: Analysis, aquatic insects, benthic macroinvertebrates, bioassessment, biological monitoring, covariates, ecological monitoring, holston river, Montana, Moss, Tennessee
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Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
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 […]
Read Odonata: Montana & Wyoming Aquatic Entomology Notes
Tags: benthic macroinvertebrates, dragonflies, feeding, Gomphidae, montana Aquatic Insects, morphology, Odonata, wyoming Aquatic insects
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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 […]
Read Holston River
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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.
Read Wyoming Educational Benthic Macroinvertebrate Project
Tags: aquatic insects, benthic, Dytiscus, Education, macroinvertebrate, Montana, Niobrara Conservation District, pictures, WACD, Wyoming, Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts
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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 […]
Read Aquatic Insect Identifications
Tags: bioassessment, insects, laboratory processing, macroinvertebrates, Quality assurance, sample identification, Taxonomy
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