Tuesday, June 5, 2007
413

A Preliminary Predictive Model for Macroinvertebrates in Wadeable Streams in the Western Allegheny Plateau

Kelly S. Johnson1, Sheila H. North1, Ed Rankin2, William Carlson3, James Dyer4, and Mary Stoertz5. (1) Biological Sciences, Ohio University, Irvine Hall, Athens, OH 45701, (2) Midwest Biodiversity Institute and Voinovich Ctr for Public Leadership, Athens, OH 45701, (3) Environmental Studies Program, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, (4) Geography, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, (5) Geological Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701

We used macroinvertebrate data from 200 minimally impacted reference sites to assess biological associations with subecoregions, land use, catchment and reach level features in the Western Allegheny Plateau.  Preliminary predictive models of macroinvertebrate community composition under least impacted conditions were developed based on observed versus expected (O/E) frequencies of occurrence.  We report on the performance of the models for assessing biological condition of a test set of streams, and discuss effects of rare taxa and taxonomic resolution (genus/species versus family) on the performance of the models.

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