Testing water quality through Bio-Assessment 2018 EPSCoR summer academy

What is water quality? Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose The waters ability to sustain life, not the drinkability of the water, is what is meant by water quality The life supported by the water forms an ecosystem

What is an ecosystem? a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment The organisms interaction forms a food web

Why is water quality important? We use clean water to drink, grow crops for food, operate factories, and for swimming, surfing, fishing and sailing. Water is vitally important to every aspect of our lives. Monitoring the quality of surface water will help protect our waterways from pollution. ... Water quality can be difficult to measure. An easy indicator of water quality is a Bio-assessment.

What is Bio-assessment? The process of evaluating the biological condition of a body of water using biological surveys and other direct measurements of the resident biota

What does that mean? Measuring the population of certain species, bio-indicators, in a given water system to determine water quality Bio-indicator is an organism whose status in an ecosystem is analyzed as an indication of the ecosystems health Macroinvertebrates are used as bio-indicators in bio-assessments of water

Macroinvertebrates The following slides do not show all listed, but the common macros to North Dakota.

Sensitive to pollution

Caddisfly larvae Can range from a quarter of an inch to two inches long

Mayfly Naiads (larvae) These can range from a quarter of an inch to 1.25 inches long.

Snails Lunged Snail (Left-handed)

What type is this? Gilled snail, opens to the right

Less sensitive to pollution

Crane fly larva These can range from ½ inch to 2 inches long.

Damselfly naiads (larvae)

Dragonfly naiads (larvae) These can range from ½ inch to 3 inches long.

Crayfish, aka crawdad, aka crawfish, aka gumbo!

Freshwater shrimp

Springtails 1/16 inch long, hop on the surface of the water

Tolerant to pollution

Midges (larvae)

Water Boatman 1/2 inch long

Pymgy Backswimmer

How can poor water quality disrupt an ecosystem? Think of the food web

Activity One Background research

What is the water quality of (insert name of body of water)? Perception What is the water quality of (insert name of body of water)?

Activity two Sample collection Separate students into appropriate groups and travel to water site, unless it is more convenient to provide pre-gathered samples.

Procedure If you are sampling in pools or highly- vegetated areas: If you are sampling in flowing water: 1. Wade into the stream and place your net so the mouth of the net is perpendicular to and facing the flow of water. 2. Stand upstream of the net and disturb the stream bottom with your feet and hands. 3. Carefully pick up and rub stones directly in front of the net to remove attached animals. The stream bottom material and organisms will be carried by the current into the net. If the rocks are lodged in the stream bottom, rub them vigorously, concentrating your effort on any cracks or indentations. 4. After removing all large stones, disturb the sand and gravel to a depth of about 3 inches by raking and stirring with your hands. 5. Continue this process until you can see no additional animals or organic matter being washed into the net. If you are sampling in pools or highly- vegetated areas: 1. Scoop material from the stream bottom with the net. Try not to scoop up too much sediment as it will make it difficult to sort the macroinvertebrates. 2. Push and pull the net through aquatic vegetation. 3. Hand pick organisms from sticks and other structures.

Sort & classify macroinvertebrates Activity three Sort & classify macroinvertebrates

Procedure 1. Sort and identify the macroinvertebrates using the petri dishes and pipettes. 2. Keep track of the number of types of organisms 3. analyze data on worksheet 4. report results

Did the results match perception? Conclusion Did the results match perception?