River+Ecology+Lab+TA+Manual


 * Lab 6: River Ecology**

The overall purpose of this lab is to introduce students to aquatic habitats. We will look at and explore both biotic and abiotic aspects of the Red Cedar River. Students enter the river; take temperature and flow readings and collect water samples and macroinvertebrate samples to take back to the lab for analysis. My goal is for students to have fun during their introduction to basic aquatic field and lab techniques. Meet in the classroom. Explain the basic outline of the lab procedures. Please point out that we have provided extra information in the lab manual for students conducting aquatic research projects. It can be found in one of the indices. Make sure that each group has elected 2-3 members to go into the river. Hopefully they brought extra socks, in case they get wet. All of the waders are fairly new and do not leak! We have 6-7 pairs of women’s waders!!!!! They are cut to fit smaller framed students!!! We will now have 22 pairs overall.

-To measure physical, chemical and biotic characteristics of the Red Cedar River -Learn how to use aquatic sampling gear and chemical kits -Learn to quantify and assess species diversity in natural environments
 * Objectives:**

- 1 bucket - 1 tennis ball - 1 thermometer (one group will take air temp for the class and will need to take 2 thermometers) - 1 sampling device (D-nets, Hass sampler, Surber sampler or kick-net) - 1 water bottle - 30-m tape - 1 meter stick - waders (2-3 per group) - 1 stopwatch Each group needs to have all of the equipment listed above. PLEASE MAKE SURE IT ALL COMES BACK IN! In the past, this is the lab where we tend to loose tons and tons of expensive equipment (i.e. thermometers, meter sticks and stopwatches). Tell your students to put on the waders by the river rather than in the lab room, as it is much easier walk to our sampling site in regular shoes. Take your class behind the Administration building and enter the river downstream of the low head dam. Be aware of river depth and flow, and if it is high and running fast, have your students stay closer to the river banks to collect their samples. Each group needs to take: Once each group has finished sampling, return back to the lab. Each group needs to return the equipment. Waders should be spread out in the front of the lab room to dry. Hang them from chairs and on the lab benches, but not from the sinks. We will end up using the sinks later in the lab period. Split each group into two, and have one half be in charge of chemical tests, while the other looks at the aquatic macroinvertebrates. They should then show the other groups what they did. //Macroinvertebrate Analysis//: ID Keys, hand lenses, dissecting scopes, pie tin trays, forceps and plastic pipettes will be provided for the analysis of the inverts. Take the sample and run it through a sieve, so that they can get most of the water out of their sample. Take what is on the sieve and put it into the pie tin with a small portion of water. Use the pipettes and forceps to find the different species. Have your students identify the inverts to functional feeding groups based on their niches. The groups are filtering collectors, gathering collectors, scrapers, shredders or predators. We may have the students count the number of macroinvertebrates and weigh them all. This measure will give us some indication of biomass in the different parts of the river.
 * Equipment: (per group)**
 * 1) A water sample using the nalgene bottle. Have the students completely fill the bottle to the brim, and cap it off under the water. By allowing no excess oxygen in the sample, they will have much more accurate Dissolved Oxygen (DO) readings back in the lab.
 * 2) [[image:file:///Users/stephenthomas/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_image002.gif width="534" height="21"]] Surface flow readings using a tennis ball, 30m tape and the stopwatch. The 2 students in waders stand 6m apart from each other. The upstream student drops the ball and one of the students on shore measures the time it takes for the ball to reach the downstream student. It is easy for the students to loose the tennis balls here, it might be easier if they have a D-net to help scoop up the tennis ball. Flow measurements need to be repeated 3 times. Record data on page 99.
 * 3) 3 measurements of air and water temperatures. Tell your students to measure the air temperature once behind the Administration building (if they take a measurement right after leaving Nat Sci is quite possible that the reading is different, usually higher than close to the river) Record data on page 99.
 * 4) Aquatic macroinvertebrate sample using one of the many collection methods. For any of these nets, students need to kick up the benthos or sediment for at least 1-2 min. They should then take the sample to the shore where they can put it in their bucket to take back to the lab. If they are unable to see any inverts in their sample, they may want to repeat the sampling methods. Just have them record how many times they sampled.


 * BIOMASS AND INVERT. NUMBER COMPARISON**

//Water Chemistry Analyses//: Students will determine pH, TDS, Nitrate-Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Dissolved Oxygen. In order to save time and reagents, each group will only perform either pH, TDS (done with hand sensor) and Dissolved Oxygen or Nitrate-Nitrogen and Phosphate. The N and P tests take at least 10 min a sample. Directions for each test are found inside the test kit and need to be followed step by step. Have them record the data on their data sheet. It is very easy to break test tubes in this portion of the lab. Please have the students be careful. We have some extra tubes, but I would much rather us not have to use them. I will have one test tube rack for each group to use. The kits are really easy, but it is also easy to screw them up. The dissolved oxygen kit is the most challenging…. 

Problems with dissolved oxygen kit: make sure to do every step, especially fixing the oxygen sample. If they forget to fix the sample, the test will not work. They need to take the water collected from the field and empty it in a different container so that the students can fill the kit's small bottle with field water without getting air bubbles (otherwise it doesn’t work very well). Once each group finishes their tests, compile a class data sheet. I will provide overheads of the River Ecology: Abiotic Parameters Summary and the Biotic Parameters Summary for the students to fill out. Introduce the concept and discuss the Shannon Weiner Index of species diversity. Have each group calculate H’ for Run Biota. They then need to compare their value to the riffle data that is already calculated and in their lab manual. What can this show us about conditions in different habitats and niches? Discuss with your class about what the biotic and abiotic values mean, why there is variation and what are the sources of that variation? Each group needs to turn in one copy of their river and biotic data sheets, H’ calculation and the comparison of run and riffle species diversity.

Grading: 10 pts total 3 pts for effort and willingness to perform lab activities 3 pts for H’ calculation 3 pts for the comparison of run and riffle species diversity 1 pt for quality of work