COMPARISON OF FISH AND MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITIES IN NATURAL AND CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS IN THE RED RIVER BASIN IN TEXAS AND LOUISIANA

This project plans to compare and contrast wetlands in northeast Texas and western Louisiana within the Mississippi River basin through sampling avian, fish, macroinvertebrate, amphibian, and reptile communities as well as hydrology, soil chemistry, and periphyton/algae biomass. The portion of the project that this study focuses on evaluated the fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages and their relationships within easement, natural and agricultural wetland types. A total of 15 wetlands were sampled consisting of 10 easements, 4 natural, and 1 agricultural wetland. The objectives of this project were to compare and contrast fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages in order to begin creating a national-scale ecological monitoring and assessment framework for wetland structure and function. Macroinvertebrate sampling consisted of a 5-minute kick net outlined by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and fish sampling varied from barge to backpack shocking depending on the size of the wetland. Although fish are not typically key indicators of wetland health, their communities were sampled as a complement to macroinvertebrate samples. There were no significant differences among the sites with reference to the fish or macroinvertebrate communities sampled when analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal-Wallis, permutational multivariate ANOVA, Non-metric multidimensional scaling, and redundancy analysis.