Assessment of periphyton, aquatic macrophytes, benthic communities, and physical habitat in midwestern United States streams coinciding with varying historical concentrations of atrazine

Abstract

The objectives of this pilot study were to: (1) characterize periphyton and benthic communities using standard collection methods in six Midwest watersheds with varying historical levels of atrazine (low range, medium range and upper range); (2) qualitatively assess presence of aquatic vascular plants at each site; (3) assess and compare physical habitat at each study site in order to evaluate how physical habitat structure may influence the biological communities and (4) analyze the periphyton and benthic macroinvertebrate community data (i.e., series of metrics) among sites to evaluate possible differences or similarities among sites with different historical atrazine exposures. Five of the eight physical habitat metrics (including total physical habitat score) were different among the six study sites. There appeared to be no substantial difference in the structure of periphtyon communities at the six Midwest sites based on 9 of 12 metrics. For the three metrics that showed differences among sites—percentage of sensitive diatoms, percent Achnanches minutissima and percent motile diatoms – there was no consistent pattern with previous degrees of atrazine exposure and the scoring of these metrics. There were also no statistical differences in aquatic macrophyte spatial coverage among the six study areas. Thus, based on the spatially and temporally limited periphyton and aquatic macrophyte data, varying historical atrazine exposure was not associated with impact on resident plant communities (the target receptor group for atrazine). All 10 benthic community metrics showed significant differences among the six Midwest sites. Although no consistent pattern existed with varying historic levels of atrazine, benthic communities at one site with lower historical levels of atrazine were of higher quality than the other five sites. However, this one site also had a higher quality habitat compared to the other sites which was most likely the reason for this benthic condition.

Keywords:

• Atrazine
• periphyton
• aquatic macrophytes
• physical habitat
• benthos

Acknowledgments

The following organizations and individuals are also acknowledged: California Department of Fish and Game for benthic identifications and metric development; Waterborne Environmental Inc. for obtaining landowner permissions; and Julia Eichman for periphyton identifications and metric development.

Funding

We acknowledge Syngenta Crop Protection for funding this study. We also acknowledge the University of Maryland, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, Wye Research and Education Center for providing partical financial support for this study.