Exercise IV. Macroinverte-whats?

This discussion is from materials developed by the Izaak Walton League of America's Save Our Streams program.

Little Critters Can Tell You Big Things

To learn more about how macroinvertebrates (small creatures that live in streams) can tell you a lot about the water quality and health of a stream, read the Web site "Why Study the Stream-Bottom Macroinvertebrates?".

1. Why do macroinvertebrates tell you more about water quality than fish do?
2. If you were the president of a small Streamkeeper organization with little money and you suspected pollution in a stream, why might you sample macroinvertebrates in the stream instead of hiring a laboratory to sample the stream water itself?
3. If you were a scientist trying to find out if a stream is polluted using the macroinvertebrate method and you did not have any data on the types of organisms that lived in the stream before there was a possibility of pollution, how might you find out if there is pollution?
4. What is the phrase that can be used to describe the role that macroinvertebrates play in alerting us to the possibility of stream pollution?

 

Middle Schools  |  Join a Stream Team!  |  Exercises: I  |  II  |  III  |  IV  |  V  | 

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