Abstract Aquatic macroinvertebrates are often the subject of biomonitoring efforts because they are ubiquitous in most systems and are known to be suitable indicators of water quality. The vast majority of biomonitoring efforts that use macroinvertebrates are tailored towards small, wadeable streams, whereas methods for sampling macroinvertebrates in non-wadeable streams (i.e., large rivers) are often less available. We compared the use of a wood sampler to collect aquatic macroinvertebrates with two more commonly used samplers (Hester-Dendy and leaf packs) to assess its suitability for sampling non-wadeable systems in the Georgia Coastal Plain. All three types of samplers were deployed at three sites on each of the Savannah and Ogeechee River for approximately 30 days during the fall of 2014. Mean, standard deviation, and variance components were examined from 53 common bioassessment metrics and 2 multi-metric indices to assess for potential differences in colonizing macroinvertebrates between the samplers. Only 9 of the metrics examined scored significantly different between sampling devices, however, assemblages colonizing the three sampling devices differed (PERMANOVA; F14,37 =1.6078, P = 0.001). Results suggest assemblage differences were primarily driven by the proportions of taxa collected by each device, rather than by different taxa colonizing devices altogether. Estimates of variance components attributed a large percentage (i.e., >20%) of the variability encountered to differences between sites, rather than devices. Our study shows that wood samplers are comparable to other devices commonly used for collecting macroinvertebrates from non-wadeable streams in the Georgia Coastal Plain. Furthermore, wood samplers can provide a suitable alternative for bioassessment, although some differences in the proportions of taxa collected with alternative devices should be expected. Determining the precision and overall efficiency of alternative sampling devices is an important step towards developing standard operating procedures for the bioassessment of large coastal plain rivers.

中文翻译：

---

东南沿海平原不可涉水溪流大型无脊椎动物生物评估木材取样器的比较

摘要 水生大型无脊椎动物通常是生物监测工作的主题，因为它们在大多数系统中无处不在，并且被认为是合适的水质指标。绝大多数使用大型无脊椎动物的生物监测工作都针对小型、可涉水的河流，而在不可涉水的河流（即大河流）中对大型无脊椎动物进行采样的方法通常不太可用。我们比较了使用木材采样器收集水生大型无脊椎动物与两个更常用的采样器（Hester-Dendy 和叶包）的使用情况，以评估其对佐治亚州沿海平原不可涉水系统采样的适用性。在 2014 年秋季期间，所有三种类型的采样器均部署在萨凡纳河和奥吉奇河的三个地点约 30 天。从 53 个常见的生物评估指标和 2 个多指标指标中检查方差分量，以评估采样器之间定殖大型无脊椎动物的潜在差异。只有 9 个检查的指标在采样设备之间得分显着不同，但是，三个采样设备的定植组合不同（PERMANOVA；F14,37 =1.6078，P = 0.001）。结果表明，组合差异主要是由每个设备收集的分类群比例驱动的，而不是完全由不同的分类群定植设备驱动的。方差分量的估计将很大百分比（即 >20%）的变异归因于站点之间的差异，而不是设备之间的差异。我们的研究表明，木材采样器与其他常用于从乔治亚州沿海平原的不可涉水溪流中收集大型无脊椎动物的设备相当。此外，木材取样器可以为生物评估提供合适的替代方案，尽管使用替代设备收集的分类群比例应该会有所不同。确定替代采样设备的精度和整体效率是制定大型沿海平原河流生物评估标准操作程序的重要一步。