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Presented at the NABS Annual meeting, Athens, Georgia, 2003
in Community Ecology II
Longitudinal complexity in headwater streams in Central Massachusetts.
E.A. Colburn1, J. Choiniere2, H. Jensen-Herrin1,3, D. Williams4, and C. Dunn2. 1Harvard Forest, Harvard University, PO Box 68, Petersham, MA 01366 USA, 2Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Goodnow Road, Princeton, MA 01541 USA, 3Antioch New England Graduate School, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431 USA, 4Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, Wachusett Mountain State Reservation, Mountain Road, Princeton, MA 01541 USA
Starting in summer, 2002, we mapped and sampled 15 intermittent headwaters tributary to 6 perennial streams in Westminster, Princeton, and Petersham, northern Worcester County, Massachusetts. Some of the study areas were cleared historically for agriculture but have regrown to forest over the past century; others have been continuously forested. The streams are small, one half to one kilometer long, and most of them flow into impoundments created by farmers in past centuries, or by beavers in recent decades. These streams do not follow the expected longitudinal pattern of ephemeral channels leading to interrupted, then interstitial sections before reaching perennial flow. Wooded wetlands with no surface flow or evident channels are interspersed along the length of several of the headwater streams. Perennially flowing sections occur upstream of wetlands and seasonally dry channel reaches. In most of these headwater streams, there is interspersion of reaches of high gradient with boulders, shallow gravel stretches, and meandering reaches with seasonally deep pools. Fountain mosses are common on cobbles. Preliminary data on benthic invertebrates from the streams suggest strong similarities in species composition both along the length of the headwaters and between streams.
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