Event Description
Bolortsetseg Erdenee, BEES PhD student, Drexel University
Response of macroinvertebrate community to flow regime in temperate steppe rivers: Long and short temporal-scale streamflow variabilities in an endorheic basin, the Great Basin, USA
My research is looking at how flow
has been altered in temperate steppe rivers, how macroinvertebrate communities are impacted as a result, and whether these impacts from hydrological alterations are scalable from the smaller reach of a river to the macroscale level encompassing many rivers in two continents. In this study, at least in terms of flow, Mongolian rivers will serve as unmodified, pristine rivers to be compared to the modified U.S. rivers. My initial research is a study of long and short temporal-scale streamflow variabilities in an endorheic basin, the Great Basin, USA, the largest area of contiguous terminal and snowmelt-dominated watersheds in North America. I examined streamflow variations across different types of hydrogeomorphic patches (HPs), which are levels of organization that emerge at different scales within a river system and are driven by catchment
geomorphology and climate. Four HPs were delineated on three drainages using the GIS-based RESonate tool including Upland-Wide (UW), Upland-Confined (UC), Lowland-Wide (LW), and Lowland-Confined (LW). Streamflow patterns on HPs
represented by long and short temporal-scale HIs are described as predictable and with consistent flow in UC, flashiness flow in LC due to observed high
flood frequency and variation in daily flow, and extended flood events with higher magnitude of flow in LW. These characteristics are expected to have important impacts on structuring the macroinvertebrate communities in the four
HPs.
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