#benthicmonitoring

[cleanwaterchronicles]

Students Get Outdoors with Benthic Bug Hunts

Students from Birmingham Covington School & Novi Meadows Elementary got outdoors this week to study the quality of the Rouge River. The students broke up into three stations. Biological, Physical, and Chemical. In the biological station they collected samples from the river, then identified the macroinvertabrate species they found. In the physical station, they measured velocity, depth, and observed stream habitats. In the chemical station, they tested the stream’s dissolved oxygen, pH, fecal coliform, phosphates, and nitrates. 

[cleanwaterchronicles]

Troy Students Participate in Fall River Monitoring

Niles Community High School Students visited Firefighters Park along the Rouge River on October 1st to identify the benthic macro-invertebrates of the stream. Students got in the river with nets to catch the stream insects in order to identify and determine their presence in the river.

Benthic macroinvertebrates (also known as "benthos") are small animals living among stones, logs, sediments and aquatic plants on the bottom of streams, rivers and lakes. They are large enough to see with the naked eye (macro) and have no backbone (invertebrate).

Macroinvertabrates provide an important food source in the stream and because they tolerate different stream conditions and levels of pollution, their presence or absence is used to indicate clean or polluted water.

If you would like to take a training course or volunteer in a fall bug hunt, please visit: https://therouge.org/bug-hunts/ for more information.