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Presented at the NABS Annual meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2002
in Wetlands I
MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITY COMPOSITION IN A WETLAND COMPLEX IN NORTH-CENTRAL ILLINOIS.
V.A. Olinik1 and P.W. Brown2. 1Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois 61820, 2Center for Wildlife Ecology, Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, Illinois 61820
Macroinvertebrates are one of the most diverse and abundant groups of organisms that exist in wetlands, and are important to the overall functioning of wetland systems because of their role in the food web. Many researchers are now looking at wetland macroinvertebrates to determine the health and function of natural and created wetlands. The purpose of this study was to assess the macroinvertebrate fauna of natural and created wetlands at Richardson Wildlife Foundation in North-Central Illinois. Macroinvertebrate community composition was evaluated according to habitat characteristics such as wetland age, wetland size, and vegetation composition. Fourteen of 23 wetlands were randomly chosen according to age (1 yr-29 yrs) and size (0.4 ha-4.7 ha) and included two natural and 12 created wetlands. Macroinvertebrates were collected with a D-frame net in summer 2001 from representative habitats within a wetland, and were enumerated and identified in the lab. Abundance, diversity, total number of taxa, and trophic structure will be presented, with respect to wetland age, wetland size, and vegetation composition, between the natural and created wetlands.
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