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Research

Research

Research

Summary

Aquatic habitats are among the most imperiled habitats on dryland military installations, yet they harbor a disproportionately high amount of biodiversity given the small land area they cover. Aquatic invertebrates (insects and allied taxa) constitute a major part of this biodiversity and form a critical part of the food web that sustains aquatic, riparian, and terrestrial organisms, including federally threatened or endangered species. Biodiversity in dryland aquatic habitats is strongly influenced by spatial and temporal variability, which presents challenges for predicting how management decisions on military lands could affect landscape-scale patterns of aquatic invertebrate biodiversity. This project integrates mathematical modeling, invertebrate sampling, and statistical estimation to develop robust methodologies for tracking biodiversity of aquatic invertebrates on dryland military bases.

Funding

Department of Defense, Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program

Timeline

February 2012 — January 2016