Long-term monitoring of benthic macroinvertebrate community structure: a perspective from a Colorado river*

Temporal and spatial trends were examined in benthic macroinvertebrate and physical-chemical data collected for at least ten years at ten sites along the plains reach of the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado, USA. A distinct longitudinal environment gradient was found as many of the water chemistry parameter levels changed downstream from the reference site. Seasonal Kendall analyses on individual sites indicated that several chemical parameters, including conductivity, un-ionized NH₃-N and NO₂-N have increased since the beginning of the study within most sites. Levels of some parameters (e.g., dissolved oxygen, un-ionized NH₃-N) violated aquatic life standards a few times during the study.Over 175 taxa of macroinvertebrates (primarily insects) were collected in the study reach from 1981–1996. Results from detrended correspondence analyses (DCA) on macroinvertebrate data indicated that this stretch of the river exhibited little longitudinal change beyond the two farthest upstream sites. There was a decline in macroinvertebrate density and total number of taxa within most individual sites during 1983–1984, corresponding with the highest recorded discharge in 75 years (1983) and a prolonged, heavy spring runoff in 1984. Taxa richness and density recovered to pre-1983 levels within a few months to a year following the high flows at most sites. These findings suggested that the macroinvertebrate assemblages had low resistance to disturbance, but high resilience. However, the results from DCAs and Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance (W) on individual sites for the entire study period suggested a similar macroinvertebrate community structure through time. It would appear that the composition and abundance of the lotic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Poudre River has remained relatively constant over the long-term. This has occurred even with some potentially negative changes in water chemistry and increased urban development.