Bachelor of Resource and Environmental Science (Honours)

Contact details for Miss Belinda Young b.young@griffith.edu.au

Thesis

Selective harvesting in headwater streams, NSW: investigating the effects of habitat fragmentation on macroinvertebrates

Description

Although benthic communities have been well studied, little research has considered the impacts of selective harvesting on adult stream insects.  This information is crucial because the essentially terrestrial adult phase may be important in determining the abundance and distribution of larval stages (Briers and Gee 2004).  The removal of vegetation by harvesting can increase the area of open forest, thus fragmenting and degrading habitat used by adult macroinvertebrates to complete life cycles and disperse between streams (Werneke and Zwick 1992).  Dispersal by winged adult stages may enable stream-dwelling insects to circumvent terrestrial barriers between adjacent freshwater habitats.  Microclimate conditions, particularly air temperature and humidity, can be more severe in these open forest areas, and may exceed tolerance limits of adult macroinvertebrates (Brosofske et al. 1997, Davies-Colley et al. 2000).  The lack of movement of adults between habitats caused by harvesting may have important consequences for population dynamics and inter-population gene-flow (Bunn and Hughes 1997).

Supervisors

Dr Fran Sheldon
Dr Dan Schmidt
Emeritus Professor Andrew Boulton

Research expertise

• River assessment
• Environmental flows
• Macroinvertebrates