Oral Presentation Society for Freshwater Science 2026 Annual Meeting

Exploring the relationship between sediment size and macroinvertebrate individual size distribution in North American freshwater streams   (135564)

Morgan Hrivnak 1 , Jeff Wesner 1
  1. University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, United States

 

Individual size distribution (ISD) is the scaling relationship between body mass and frequency of individuals within a community. Sediment can impact the physical environment where macroinvertebrates live and can carry potentially harmful chemicals and pollutants. Previous studies have examined the relationship between the macroinvertebrate communities and chemical properties associated with sediment, yet the physical size of sediment has received less attention. This project aimed to explore the relationship between the sediment size of the substrate and the ISD of macroinvertebrates over 21 National Ecological Observation Network (NEON) wadeable streams across North America from Alaska to Puerto Rico. We estimated the particle size distribution of each pebble count survey from 2017 to 2021 and the corresponding ISD values of macroinvertebrates. Preliminary results show that sediment size does not impact the ISD of macroinvertebrates on a continental level. These results support the robust community-level property of ISD that remains stable across a wide gradient of sediment size.