A field trip to the great rivers and microscopic views of macroinvertebrates

Atop the research center

Our work in the Boneyard and Saline creeks has uncovered many questions; one of them being:  What is the quality of the water and the ecosystems that depend on it?  We have observed for ourselves during our month on the Saline that there is apparently a great deal of diversity there despite the heavy utilitarian use and abuse of the creek.  The Saline and other creek/ditches represent some of the only continuous wildlife habitat in an agriculturally dominant landscape and a good diversity of fauna can be found there.  This fact might go against the popular notions of the Saline that tend to consider the creek as a ditch; signifying waste receptacle.  These "ditches" were built and are maintained by drainage districts funded by public tax dollars but are essentially private property.  We believe there is a great opportunity to both maintain the utilitarian integrity of the Saline, and similar water ways,while maintaining habitat and creating public access.

Vera and the scientific method

We took the opportunity to visit the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to learn a little bit about water health by way of Macro-invertebrates.  Macro-invertebrates are organisms that can be seen by the naked eye and are used by scientists to determine the health of a particular stream or river.  They are an important link of the food chain much like plankton are in the ocean.  We were given a hands on tutorial on the procedure of collecting and sorting macro-invertebrates and detailing stream composition and flow.  Before we sloshed around in a small creek that Vera our instructor named after the abundant ceramic debris found there, we were able to view macro-invertebrate specimens under the microscopes in the lab. The unseen are nevertheless endlessly fascinating. In the creek we surveyed, we found only Sideswimmers or Amphipoda, a small shrimp like creature,  but Vera stressed the fact that late June was pushing the limit of the time frame for finding macros as most have already gone through the larval stage of their metamorphoses and are either pupating or have emerged from the water.  We anticipate putting the Saline on the register for macro monitored creeks in the Fall.



                       sideswimmers were spared, from scientific inquire, we threw back our catch 


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