Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS45 Temporary Aquatic Ecosystems: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Spatial and Temporal Connections)

Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2001, Time: 10:45:00 AM

Location: Cochiti/Taos

Gerlanc, N, M, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA, nikg@ksu.edu

Wies, L, , Allegheny College, Meadville, USA, wiesl@alleg.edu

Dodds, W, K, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA, wkdodds@ksu.edu

MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN TEMPORARY AND PERMANENT AQUATIC HABITATS IN A TALLGRASS PRAIRIE

Community structure in temporary aquatic habitats is constrained by hydroperiod and is further mediated by biotic interactions. We collected data for bison wallows, intermittent, and perennial streams on the Konza Prairie Biological Station in northeastern Kansas, to study mechanisms structuring animal communities. We measured water temperature, pH, ammonium, O2, water volume, and hydroperiod and collected animals with a 0.7mm mesh dip net in the spring of 1997 and 1998. Invertebrate community composition of bison wallows depended more upon the surface area of a wallow than the wallow hydroperiod or water quality. Perennial streams had the highest richness (70 taxa). However, only 17 of those taxa were unique to that habitat type. Bison wallows had the lowest richness (35 taxa), but they had the highest proportion, 57%, of taxa unique to any single habitat. We suggest that differences in community structure between streams and wallows are driven by permanence, and differences among bison wallows are controlled by factors that influence invertebrate colonization (analogous to island biogeography) with hydrologic regime assuming secondary importance.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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