Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Keywords

chironomidae, subsampling, accumulation curve, stream, river

Abstract

The objective of this analysis was to determine the number of Chironomidae (Diptera) larvae needed to achieve 90% of the genera in fixed-count subsamples. Composite macroinvertebrate samples from 12 sites with three sites being sampled twice were collected during the summer of 2007 and processed using U.S. EPA lab protocols (U.S. EPA 2004). Chironomidae were mounted and identified to genus following Merritt et al. (2008). For each sample, number of genera and percent of Chironomidae needed to reach 90% of genera in the subsample were determined with a genera-accumulation curve. The number of Chironomidae individuals (range = 5-269) and genera (range = 2-14) were highly variable among the 15 samples. Percent of subsample needed to reach 90% of the composite generic richness averaged 25.3% (range = 10-70%). The large range of individuals needed to reach 90% of total genera lead to the conclusion that site-specific curves would be necessary to determine subsampling effort.

Publication Title

Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science

Volume

87

First Page

29

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