Mnomen (wild rice) is an essential source of food for Indigenous people in the Great Lakes region, including the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi (NHBP). A collaboration between the NHBP and Albion College allows us to fuse Indigenous knowledge traditions and Western scientific knowledge to study the relationship between aquatic macroinvertebrates and mnomen. We use birch bark collectors, known as wigwasmkok, deployed in mnomen beds to collect samples of invertebrates, which are then identified utilizing dichotomous keys. We present results from two studies here. 1) Along the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan are many mnomen beds of varying sizes. Our overall goal was to understand the effects of abiotic factors of the mnomen beds (bed size, depth, and water velocity) on the level of macroinvertebrate biodiversity found within the beds. We hypothesized that larger mnomen beds would be home to a more diverse community than smaller beds. Samples were collected in June and July of 2023 from four sites with different-sized mnomen beds to examine the effects of bed size and water depth on community composition, species diversity, and abundance. 2) Additional samples were collected in June 2025 to test if other variables, such as water velocity changes caused by mnomen influenced macroinvertebrate species diversity across the rice beds, with the hypothesis that higher species diversity would be found at the upstream edge and middle of rice beds in response to immediate changes in water velocity. Wigwasmkok were deployed in both real and artificial rice beds constructed from wood and cotton curling ribbon to assess the role of rice-bed structure in community diversity and test the artificial beds as models. From these two studies, it was concluded that mnomen bed size does not strongly influence macroinvertebrate species diversity and richness, and there was no significant difference in species diversity or abundance between or within real and artificial beds. Determining the impacts of abiotic factors on biodiversity provides further insights into community relationships within the river, which are essential to conservation efforts for mnomen and the broader Kalamazoo River ecosystem.