Maryland: Developing an IBI Assessment for restored Wetland in the Mid-Atlantic States

1. Maryland: Developing an IBI Assessment for restored Wetland in the Mid-Atlantic States

2. Introduction • EPA is developing an IBI assessment for restored wetlands in the mid-Atlantic states. • The purpose of this would be to develop sampling methods for different assemblages. • Also, by developing a yardstick of biological metrics to assess the progress and condition of reconstructed wetlands in Maryland, as well as Delaware and Virginia. • By comparing the suitability of different assemblages, like plants, micro invertebrates, and amphibians, we can start assessing wetland conditions. • We will also be evaluating the sources and magnitude of variance in data collected for biological metrics and seasonal and annual biological fluctuations for particular wetland sites.

3. Vocab words • Amphibians- Like birds, reptiles, mammals, and fishes, amphibians are vertebrates -- that is, creatures with a backbone and an internal skeleton. Amphibians live part of their life in water and part on land. Even those species that lay eggs on land start life in a fluid-filled egg, breathing through gills. • Macroinvertebrates- macroinvertebrates are animals without backbones that are larger than ½ millimeters long. These animals live on rocks, logs, sediment, debris and aquatic plants during some period in their life. • Vascular plants- Vascular plants are those plants that have lignified tissues for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant. • Hydrology- Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability. • Invertebrate- Invertebrates are animals without backbones. The group includes 95% of all animal species. They form a paraphyletic group.

4. Vocab word (cont.) • Larvae- Larva is a distinct juvenile form of many animals before they undergo metamorphosis. Larvae typically have unique structures and larval organs that do not occur in the adult form. • Morphology- Morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. It includes aspects of the outward appearances such as shape, structure, color and pattern. In addition, it includes the structure of bones and organs. • Taxonomic- Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. It uses taxa(a unit). • Index of biological integrity (IBI)- IBI is a scientific tool used to identify and classify water pollution problems. • Graminoid- Graminoid is another word for grass. They tend to have narrow leaves growing from the base. The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns.

5. Project Description or History • This is a mutual effort between the USGS, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Wetland Science Institute, and the EPA. • This project started in 1995 because of the lack of information of wetland mitigation projects, specifically wetland restoration on farmlands. From 1996-1998 focuses were set on restoring and existing wetlands. In 1999, a second wetlands was built to evaluate the robustness of the metrics. • All fieldwork has been completed and metric development is under way.

6. Summary of Study Design • For 3 years, work was done on a single set of 30 wetland including 22 restored and 8 natural wetlands. • All wetlands were either depressional, semipermanent, or seasonal. • Macroinvertebrates were sampled one to four times each year, depending on hydrology. Macrophytes were sampled during spring and late summer while amphibians were sampled almost continuously during the breeding season.

7. Summary of Sampling • Macrophytes, Macroinvertebrates and Amphibians were studied. Macrophytes were sampled by line transects. • Pairs of 50 transects were placed on opposite sides of the wetlands at four different hydrological levels. Each transect was divided into five runs of 5 m each, alternating with 5 m of unsampled transect.  Each run of 5 m contained 5 sample pints. Macroinvertebrates were sampled every 6 weeks from May to October, along with the sampling of water quality, aquatic plants, and hydrological and wetland dimensions. Invertebrate samples were collected along transects following compass coordinates but were randomly chosen. Samples were colled using a modified Gerking box sampler. The vegetation in the sampler was to cut the mud-water interface and put into prelabled plastic bags. Amphibian larvae were sampled once every four weeks. Using a 6x8-m nylon seine to sample each wetland by wading out 3 to 5 m away from the shoreline and then moving in towards the shoreline in one continuous sweep. Also, drift fences were also used to supplement seining data and obtain information on adults and metamorphs.all amphibians were identified, sexed and returned to the inside of the fence at the wetland from which they were captured.

8. Conclusion • After the group sampling and researching many of the wetlands, they found that because they’re a few years old, they may not have had enough time for the ecological and anthropogenic favors to separate them along a physical rise. • In deep water areas that are greater than 45 cm have lower species richness than the shallower water areas and because of this, they do not need to be sampled at the same level of intensity. It seems to be the best months for finding abundance of macroinvertebrates between June and early July. • The only thing left for the group to do is more research and samples on the site for a longer period of time and revisit the wetland over the next 10 years because it is only a few years old. • The next step to the case study will be revisiting the site frequently and repeating the steps to sample the species and wetlands.