Macroinvertebrate Monitoring as an Indicator of Water Quality: Status Report for Wilson's Creek and Skeggs Branch, Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, 1988-2001
Thomas LP, Peitz DG, Carlisle DM. 2002. Macroinvertebrate Monitoring as an Indicator of Water Quality: Status Report for Wilson's Creek and Skeggs Branch, Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, 1988-2001
The objectives of this biomonitoring program are to determine the annual status of stream macroinvertebrate communities in order to assess the overall biotic integrity of Wilson’s Creek and to detect changes through time in macroinvertebrate communities. Benthic macroinvertebrates are the most common group of organisms used to assess water quality (Rosenberg and Resh 1993). They are useful as indicators because they represent a diverse group of relatively long-lived, sedentary species that react strongly and often predictably to human influences on aquatic systems (Cairns and Pratt 1993).