We had a high-powered sampling led by a local girl-scout troop on a sunny, breezy afternoon.
The results were comparable to last year's sampling around this time of year with the number of organisms smaller
than in the winter and spring months. We theorize that the higher water temperatures and related lower disolved oxygen (DO) levels may influece these variations.
Total number of organisms were 78 a year ago and 81 this year. The number of species found was down by four species this year; and we missed finding any salamanders, but netted plenty of minnows, like last year. If we had more research power, we might have identified several species that had to remain in the mystery category. Here are the totals compared (the first number being this year): stonefly 11/6; mayfly 22/15; caddisfly with house 0/3;
common spinning caddisfly 1/1; water penny 7/2; riffle beetle 4/1; cranefly 3/3; fishfly 0/4; Dobsonfly 3/2; Alderfly 0/4; Crawfish 5/8;
Midgefly 0/5
playing in the "fish trap" |
crawfish |
collaboration |
checking for water pH and D.O. |
Grandmother's pride |
|
playing while you work |
what IS it? |
friendly critters |
catch it while you can! |
