Ecology of a saline stream: community responses to spatial gradients of environmental conditions |
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Authors: | Terry M Short Jeffrey A Black Wesley J Birge |
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Institution: | (1) School of Biological Sciences and Graduate Center for Toxicology, University of Kentucky, 40506 Lexington, KY, USA;(2) Present address: U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, MS 470, 94025 Menlo Park, CA, USA;(3) Present address: EA Engineering, Science & Technology, 15 Loveton Circle, 21152 Sparks, MD, USA |
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Abstract: | Spatial changes in structural and functional characteristics of fish and macroinvertebrate communities in eastern Kentucky
were investigated in a drainage system chronically exposed to high levels of chloride salts from nearby oilfield operations.
Salinity levels at biological monitoring stations ranged from 0.12–31.3‰. Lotic regions with salinities greater than 10‰ were
dominated by larvae of the dipterans Ephydra and Culicoides. In regions with salinities less than 10‰ species richness increased more or less linearly with decreasing levels of chloride
salts. Ephemeropterans appeared to be one of the major invertebrate groups least tolerant of elevated NaCl levels and were
absent in regions with salinities greater than 2‰ Availability of food resources, such as periphyton and particulate organic
matter, did not appear to be grossly altered in disturbed regions, and it is suggested that the observed distribution of macroinvertebrate
fauna was largely in response to taxonomic differences in salt tolerance. Fish seemed to be more tolerant of highly saline
conditions, and several species were observed in regions experiencing salinities as high as 15‰. Accordingly, assemblages
of fish taxa along the salinity gradient may have been influenced by trophic factors, such as spatial limitations in availability
of invertebrate prey. |
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Keywords: | macroinvertebrates fish saline stream ecology |
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