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Aquatic macroinvertebrate communities in relation to environmental variables in restoration and reference wetlands in North Carolina, USA

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Abstract

Worldwide, interest is growing in the reliability of using macroinvertebrates as wetland condition indicators and for signaling restoration or mitigation success. We compared macroinvertebrate community structure and environmental parameters of reference sites to restoration sites, representing re-establishment and enhancement techniques. To determine which environmental parameters are suitable indicators of macroinvertebrate community metrics (i.e., taxon richness, diversity and evenness), we compared macroinvertebrate communities with a suite of environmental and habitat variables, such as standing water duration, dissolved oxygen (DO) content, pH, and vegetation cover by stand height or growth form. Data were collected from 16 wetland sites in four categories: 4 re-establishment, 4 enhancement, and 4 of each closed or open canopy reference. Each year for two years, hydrology, water quality, and vegetation attributes were sampled at each site, along with macroinvertebrate community sampling. Vegetation variables were primary drivers of macroinvertebrate community metrics. Though DO was positively correlated with macroinvertebrate taxa evenness, multiple vegetation variables were strongly related to taxa evenness. Sites supporting higher macroinvertebrate richness and diversity had longer inundation times, more coverage of filamentous algae, and fewer dominant tree species. If providing habitat supportive of macroinvertebrate taxon richness and diversity are restoration goals, then appropriate mitigation designs should incorporate heterogeneous mixtures of habitat types ranging from open to partially closed canopies which influence inundation duration, DO, and algal cover. Further, our results suggest that a suite of vegetation variables in conjunction with hydrology have potential to be used as proxies for assessing wetland macroinvertebrate community metrics.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to especially thank Larry Eaton, who is a published aquatic macroinvertebrate biologist, retired from the NC Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ), and listed as a taxonomic expert with the Society for Freshwater Science. He assisted with sampling and identified the many thousands of macroinvertebrates. James Graham, Anthony Scarbraugh, Lori Montgomery, and Michael Coleman provided field assistance. Amanda Mueller, Ross Vander Vorste, Larry Eaton, and Cyndi Karoly provided valuable reviews of the final project report. Philip Cross and Peter Ibsen assisted with figures. The authors also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers whose feedback improved the manuscript. This project was funded in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) under assistance agreement CD-00D01512 to the NC DEQ. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the US EPA, nor does the US EPA endorse trade names or recommend the use of commercial products mentioned in this document.

Funding

This work was funded by the US EPA Wetland Program Development Grant CD-00D01512 and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Division of Water Resources, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Raleigh, NC, 27607, USA

      Kristie Gianopulos, Virginia Baker & Gregory Rubino

    2. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC, 28403, USA

      Sheri Shiflett

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    1. Kristie Gianopulos
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    KG, VB, and GR designed the study, collected and analyzed data, and KG wrote a report to the US EPA, which served as the basis for this publication. SS and KG reanalyzed data, wrote, and edited this work for the formatted journal manuscript.

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    Correspondence to Kristie Gianopulos.

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    Gianopulos, K., Shiflett, S., Baker, V. et al. Aquatic macroinvertebrate communities in relation to environmental variables in restoration and reference wetlands in North Carolina, USA. Wetlands Ecol Manage 29, 823–841 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-021-09812-w

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