Land Use Effects on Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Diversity within the Adirondacks

El
ana Berl
in&AaronStol
er
Environmental
Science P rogram,DepartmentofNatural
Sciences and Mathematics,StocktonU niversity

Introduction Land Use Type

Stream Study Portions
O ther

The stabil ity and functional

ity ofa l
ake are strongl
y rel
ated tothe biol
ogicaldiversity offood webs inthe Devel
oped O penSpace 500Meters

streams thatfeed intothe l ake.U sing Lake George as a modelecosystem,we hypothesized that Devel
oped,Low I
ntensity 1000Meters
diversity ofstreams is inversel y rel
ated tothe percentage ofland developed around the stream.Totest Devel
oped,Medium I
ntensity
1500Meters
this hypothesis,we used anex tensive datasetcomprising I D’ed samples ofaquatic macroinvertebrates Devel
oped,H igh I
ntensity
2000Meters
from nine majorstreams surrounding Lake George.W e found a positive rel ationship betweenstream Deciduous Forest
Ful
lStream
diversity and l and devel opment.Since mostofthe streams are nutrient- poorintheirnaturalstate,this EvergreenForest
trend mightbe a resul tofnutrientenrichment. Mix ed Forest

Methodology
W e focused onmacroinvertebrate diversity instreams,since these comprise the majority ofconsumer
biomass intemperate stream ecosystems.W e col lected macroinvertebrate sampl es (see ex ampl es of
species collected infigures 3,4&5)from nine streams surrounding Lake George.O fthe 100streams
feeding intothe l ake,these nine streams provide ~50% ofthe totalinfl ow.W e collected allsampl es at
100m upstream from the mouth ofthe stream ( i.
e.where itenters Lake George) .W e empl oyed both
kicknets and Dendy sampl ers (
see figure 2)tocol l
ectmacroinvertebrates .W e consol idated the raw
sampl e data and cal culated diversity using Shannon’ s index (see figure 1)
.W e thenused the National
Land CoverDatabase projectl and classes withina 100- meterradius bufferofeach stream.Each
stream bufferstarted from the sampl ing site and ended 2000meters upstream.Buffers incl uded four
NationalGeographic,Esri,Garmin,H ER E,
U NEP -
W CMC,U SGS,NASA,ESA,METI ,
NR CAN,GEBCO ,NO AA,incrementP Corp.

subtypes ofdevel opmentl and class including openspace,l ow intensity,medium intensity,and high Figure 6:Finkl
e Brookl
and use anal
ysis.
intensity,and three subtypes ofthe forestl and class including deciduous,evergreen,and mix ed.W e
ex cl
uded otherl and cl asses inthe NLCD( i.
e.openwater,pasture/ hay,shrub/
scrub,and emergent
herbaceous wetl ands)as they general l
y comprised a smal lpercentage oftotalland use inthe area;
these are classified as “other”inthe maps.

Results and Discussion

Figure 1:Shannon'
sIndex (
H )cal
cul
ation.

µ
Incontrasttoourhypothesis,we found aninverse rel ationship betweenstream diversity and percent NationalGeographic,Esri,Garmin,H ER E,
U NEP -
W CMC,U SGS,NASA,ESA,METI ,

forest.Nutrientenrichmentfrom mineral s and chemical s picked up from runoffnormal l

y is the
NR CAN,GEBCO ,NO AA,incrementP Corp.

precursortoeutrophicationinl arge standing bodies ofwater.H owever,this is mostl ikely tooccurin Figure 7:Engl
ish Brookl
and use anal
ysis.

ecosystems thatare al ready inundated with nutrients.Because Lake George is anol igotrophic (i.
e.l
ow
nutrient)system,itis possibl e thatthe increase innutrienttypical ly associated with l and devel opment 0 2 4 8Mil
es
has increased macroinvertebrate system diversity instead ofdiminishing it.I nfuture studies,studying
the land use effectwithinportions ofeach stream instead ofovera 2000- m spanmight produce more
refined results.Evaluating l
and use withinportions ofthe streams canhel p us understand how
upstream activity canaffectdownstream ecosystems.Al ternatively,mul tiple sampl e sites throughout
NationalGeographic,Esri,Garmin,H ER E,U NEP -
W CMC,U SGS,NASA,ESA,METI
,NR CAN,GEBCO ,NO AA,
incrementP Corp.

one stream canprovide a betterunderstanding ofthe environmentalimpacts ofl and use inits Figure 9:Lake George and surrounding streams.Divisions ofstreams del
segments.
ineated by col
ored

immediate surroundings.I nterpreting this research willaide future zoning and devel opmentrestrictions
inefforts toconserve the environmentalheal th ofthe area.

0 0.
175 0.
35 0
NationalGeographic,Esri,G .
7
ar Mil
min,H es
ER E,
U NEP -
W CMC,U SGS,NASA,ESA,METI ,
NR CAN,GEBCO ,NO AA,incrementP Corp.
Figure 10:State ofNew Y orkwith
stardistinguising study site.
Figure 8:NorthwestBay Brookl
and use anal
ysis.

0 75 150 300Mil
es

Figure 2:Dendy sampler.O ne ofthe twosampl

ing
methods used tocoll
ectmacroinvertebrates.
Figure 3:Mayfl
ylarvae. Finkle Brook
Finkle Brook Indian Brook
Indian Brook Sucker Brook
Sucker Brook Overall Percent Forested vs Shannon's Index R² = 0.4015
0.00
1.61
4.91 4.22 Sucker Brook
1.6

1.59 Engl ish Brook

Shannon's Index

1.58
Fos ter Brook
1.57 Wes t Brook
100.00 Ha gue Brook
1.56 NW Ba y Brook
95.09 77.59
Shel ving Rock
1.55 Indian Brook
Percent Forest Percent Develop Fi nkle Brook
1.54
40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Percent Forest

Shelving Rock
Shelving Rock Foster Brook
Foster Brook
Hague Brook
Hague Brook
Figure 12:Graph ofShannon'
s Diversity I
ndex compared tothe percentforestforeach
stream.
7.94 10.61 9.76

Overall Percent Developed vs Shannon's Index R² = 0.1694

1.61
Sucker Brook
1.6
Figure 5:Caddisflyl
arvae with distinctive protective covering made 1.59 Engl ish Brook
from material
s found instream environment.
Shannon's Index

92.06 89.39 70.59

1.58
Fos ter Brook
1.57 Wes t Brook
Figure 4:Stonefl
ylarvae. NW Ba y Brook
Ha gue Brook
1.56
Shel ving Rock
Indian Brook
1.55

Acknowledgments
Fi nkle Brook
West
West Brook
Brook NWNW
Bay Brook
Bay Brook English Brook
English Brook
1.54
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Percent Develop
13.52

Specialthanks toDr.W eihong Fan,Angel ique

24.66

Figure 13:Graph ofShannon'

s Diversity I
ndex compared tothe percentdevel
opmentfor
W anek,Al ice Belskis,Cassandra Shank,El ijah R ick,
44.89

55.11 each stream.

J essica K l
ein,J osh Alcoba,J ustine Smith,Lauren 75.34
Source:J in,S.
G.“NLCD201
,Y ang,L. ,Daniel
1Land Cover(
son,P .
201
,H omer,C. ,Fry,J .
,&X ian,
1Edition,amended 2014)-
Tigue,NickCostanzo,R aya Lipka,Sophia P iper,and
86.48
NationalGeospatialData Asset( NGDA)Land U se Land Cover
[remote- sensing image].“Acomprehensive change detection
Tahesia R eid foral ltheirsupportand hel p throughout method forupdating the NationalLand CoverDatabase tocirca
201 1”.201 1.https://
www. mrlc.gov/data/nl
cd-2011-land-cover-
the research process. Spada,D." l
champl
conus.
geowtl"[vectordigitaldata].1:5000.
Figure 1
1:P ie charts ofoveral
ll
and use percentage foreach stream at200meters. "W atershed Scal e P rotectionforAdirondackW etl ands".O ctober,
2010.
https://
www. apa. ny.gov/gis/shared/htmlpages/data.html#wetl.
(November13,2018) .