Oral Presentations
Presentation Type
Presentation
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Lisa Eby
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Zooplankton are microscopic organisms that are integral to food webs in aquatic environments, and their diversity and composition can serve as biological indicators of ecosystem condition and function. Studying zooplankton assemblages can provide a useful tool for practitioners working in restored ponds, yet they are often overlooked in restoration assessments. To examine zooplankton community recovery in gravel pit ponds, I first compared zooplankton communities in two gravel pit ponds near Fort Missoula while they were still owned by Knife River Construction (2015) and then after initial restoration actions were completed (2022). Second, I compared current zooplankton communities in these actively restored ponds at Fort Missoula with two potential reference ponds in Frenchtown and Lolo, MT. The Frenchtown pond is a gravel pit pond that has been established for over 50 years and the Lolo pond represents a natural floodplain pond. I used a 50-micron zooplankton net to sample in the deep hole at each site three times during June and August of 2022, and then I identified zooplankton to family. In the Fort Missoula Ponds, zooplankton richness increased slightly between 2015 and 2022 and shifted from being dominated by copepods in 2015 to rotifers in 2022. Family richness was similar among all three gravel pit ponds in 2022, and rotifers and copepods were the most common families for all ponds regardless of age. This is similar to existing literature that highlights the rapid recovery of zooplankton communities in newly restored gravel pit ponds. Interestingly, the natural floodplain reference site had a slightly lower family richness and fewer Daphniidae, which may be a result of the strong connection to the river. The differences we detected among sites in this study may be related to presence of fish and hydrologic connection to the river which are useful considerations in identifying reference sites.
Category
Life Sciences
How do zooplankton communities in gravel pit ponds respond to restoration?
UC 331
Zooplankton are microscopic organisms that are integral to food webs in aquatic environments, and their diversity and composition can serve as biological indicators of ecosystem condition and function. Studying zooplankton assemblages can provide a useful tool for practitioners working in restored ponds, yet they are often overlooked in restoration assessments. To examine zooplankton community recovery in gravel pit ponds, I first compared zooplankton communities in two gravel pit ponds near Fort Missoula while they were still owned by Knife River Construction (2015) and then after initial restoration actions were completed (2022). Second, I compared current zooplankton communities in these actively restored ponds at Fort Missoula with two potential reference ponds in Frenchtown and Lolo, MT. The Frenchtown pond is a gravel pit pond that has been established for over 50 years and the Lolo pond represents a natural floodplain pond. I used a 50-micron zooplankton net to sample in the deep hole at each site three times during June and August of 2022, and then I identified zooplankton to family. In the Fort Missoula Ponds, zooplankton richness increased slightly between 2015 and 2022 and shifted from being dominated by copepods in 2015 to rotifers in 2022. Family richness was similar among all three gravel pit ponds in 2022, and rotifers and copepods were the most common families for all ponds regardless of age. This is similar to existing literature that highlights the rapid recovery of zooplankton communities in newly restored gravel pit ponds. Interestingly, the natural floodplain reference site had a slightly lower family richness and fewer Daphniidae, which may be a result of the strong connection to the river. The differences we detected among sites in this study may be related to presence of fish and hydrologic connection to the river which are useful considerations in identifying reference sites.