Wildfire induced changes in aquatic invertebrate communities and mercury bioaccumulation in the Okefenokee Swamp

Hydrobiologia

Volumn 669, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 237-247

  Beganyi, Sarah R ^a,b   Batzer, Darold P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA   (United States)

^b Aronoff Laboratory   (United States)

Author keywords

Community structure; Fire; Gambusia; Macroinvertebrate; Wetland

Indexed keywords

BIOACCUMULATION; COMMUNITY DYNAMICS; CONCENTRATION (COMPOSITION); CYPRINID; DATA SET; DISTURBANCE; DROUGHT; MACROINVERTEBRATE; MERCURY (ELEMENT); SCRUB; SHRUB; SWAMP; WATER LEVEL; WILDFIRE;

OKEFENOKEE SWAMP; UNITED STATES;

ACARI; AMPHIPODA; ASTACOIDEA; CUPRESSUS; GAMBUSIA; HYDRACARINA; INVERTEBRATA; ISCHNURA; OECETIS; SIGARA;

EID: 79956099435     PISSN: 00188158     EISSN: 15735117     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10750-011-0694-4     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Allen, E. W., E. E. Prepas, S. Gabos, W. M. J. Strachan & W. Zhang, 2005. Methyl mercury concentrations in macroinvertebrates and fish from burned and undisturbed lakes on the Boreal Plain. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science 62: 1963-1977.
2. Batzer, D. P., A. S. Shurtleff & R. B. Rader, 2001. Sampling invertebrates in wetlands. In Rader, R. B., D. P. Batzer & S. A. Wissinger (eds), Bioassessment and Management of North American Freshwater Wetlands. Wiley, New York: 339-354.
3. Beganyi, S. R., 2010. Effects of wildfire on the community composition of aquatic macroinvertebrates and total mercury concentrations of select organisms in the Okefenokee Swamp. M. S. Thesis. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
4. Benke, A. C., A. D. Huryn, L. A. Smock & J. B. Wallace, 1999. Length-mass relationships for freshwater macroinvertebrates in North America with particular reference to the southeastern United States. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 18: 308-343.
5. Biswas, A., J. D. Blum, B. Klaue & G. J. Keeler, 2007. Release of mercury from Rocky Mountain forest fires. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 21: GB1002.
6. Boening, D. W., 2000. Ecological effects, transport, and fate of mercury: a general review. Chemosphere 40: 1335-1351.
7. Burton, T. M., D. G. Uzarski, J. P. Gathman, J. A. Genet, B. E. Keas & C. A. Stricker, 1999. Development of a preliminary invertebrate index of biotic integrity for Lake Huron coastal wetlands. Wetlands 19: 869-882.
8. Casagrande, D. J. & L. D. Erchull, 1977. Metals in plants and waters in the Okefenokee Swamp and their relationship to constituents found in coal. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41: 1391-1394.
9. Clarke, K. R. & R. M. Warwick, 1994. Similarity-based testing for community pattern: the two-way layout with no replication. Marine Biology 118: 167-176.
10. Cypert, E., 1961. The effects of fires in the Okefenokee Swamp in 1954 and 1955. American Midland Naturalist 66: 485-503.
11. Davis, C. A. & J. R. Bidwell, 2008. Response of aquatic invertebrates to vegetation management and agriculture. Wetlands 28: 793-805.
12. de Szalay, F. A. & V. H. Resh, 1997. Responses of wetland invertebrates and plants important in waterfowl diets to burning and mowing of emergent vegetation. Wetlands 17: 149-156.
13. Dowdy, S., S. Weardon & D. Chilko, 2004. Statistics for Research, 3rd ed. Wiley, Hoboken.
14. Epler, J. H., 1996. Identification Manual for the Water Beetles of Florida. State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee.
15. Flebbe, P. A. 1982. Biogeochemistry of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the aquatic subsystem of selected Okefenokee Swamp sites. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
16. Garcia, E. & R. Carignan, 1999. Impact of wildfire and clear-cutting in the boreal forest on methyl mercury in zooplankton. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science 56: 339-345.
17. George, B. M. & D. P. Batzer, 2008. Spatial and temporal variations of mercury levels in Okefenokee invertebrates: Southeast Georgia. Environmental Pollution 152: 484-490.
18. Gresswell, R. E., 1999. Fire and aquatic ecosystems in forested biomes of North America. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 128: 193-195.
19. Hamilton, D. B. 1982. Plant succession and the influence of disturbance in the Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
20. Hartzell, D., J. R. Bidwell & C. A. Davis, 2007. A comparison of natural and created depressional wetlands in central Oklahoma using metrics from indices of biological integrity. Wetlands 27: 794-805.
21. Helgen, J. C. & M. C. Gernes, 2001. Monitoring the condition of wetlands: indexes of biological integrity using invertebrates and vegetation. In Batzer, D. P., R. B. Rader & S. A. Wissinger (eds), Invertebrates in Freshwater Wetlands of North America: Ecology and Management. Wiley, New York: 167-184.
22. Henke, J. A. 2005. Assessing the efficacy of different sampling methods and determining length-mass relationships for wetland invertebrates. M. S. Thesis University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
23. Horvat, M., 1996. Mercury analysis and speciation in environmental samples. In Baeyens, W., R. Ebinghaus & O. Vasiliev (eds), Global and Regional Mercury Cycles: Sources, Fluxes and Mass Balances. Kuwer Academic Pulishers, Dordrecht: 1-31.
24. Jagoe, C. H., B. Arnold-Hill, G. M. Yanochko, P. V. Winger & I. L. Brisbin, 1998. Mercury in alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in the southeastern United States. The Science of the Total Environment 213: 255-262.
25. Kelly, E. N., D. W. Schindler, V. L. St. Louis, D. B. Donald & K. E. Vladicka, 2006. Forest fire increases mercury accumulation by fishes via food web restructuring and increased mercury inputs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103: 19380-19385.
26. Kratzer, E. B. & D. P. Batzer, 2007. Spatial and temporal variation in aquatic macroinvertebrates in the Okefenokee swamp Georgia, USA. Wetlands 27: 127-140.
27. Lindberg, S., R. Bullock, R. Ebinghaus, D. Engstrom, X. Feng, W. Fitzgerald, N. Pirrone, E. Prestbo & C. Seigneur, 2007. A synthesis of progress and uncertainty attributing the sources of mercury in deposition. AMBIO 36: 19-32.
28. Liu, G. L., Y. Cai, T. Philippi, P. Kalla, D. Scheidt, J. Richards, L. Scinto, E. Gaiser & C. Appleby, 2008. Mercury mass budget estimates and cycling seasonality in the Florida Everglades. Environmental Science and Technology 42: 1954-1960.
29. McCune, B. & J. B. Grace. 2002. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling. In Analysis of Ecological Communities. MjM Software Design, Gleneden Beach: 125-142.
30. Miao, S. L., C. Edelstein, S. Carstenn & B. H. Gu, 2010. Immediate ecological impacts of a prescribed fire on a cattail-dominated wetland in Florida Everglades. Fundamental and Applied Limnology 176: 29-41.
31. Merritt, R. W., K. W. Cummins & M. B. Berg, 2008. An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America, 4th ed. Kendall Hunt, Dubuque.
32. Middleton, B., 1999. Wetland Restoration, Flood Pulsing, and Disturbance Dynamics. Wiley, New York.
33. Minshall, G. W., 2003. Responses of stream benthic macroinvertebrates to fire. Forest Ecology and Management 178: 155-161.
34. Porter, K. G., A. Bergstedt & M. C. Freeman, 1999. The Okefenokee Swamp: invertebrate communities and foodwebs. In Batzer, D. P., R. B. Rader & S. A. Wissinger (eds), Invertebrates in Freshwater Wetlands of North America. Wiley, New York: 121-135.
35. Pickhardt, P. C., C. L. Folt, C. Y. Chen, B. Klaue & J. D. Blum, 2002. Algal blooms reduce the uptake of toxic methylmercury in freshwater food webs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 4419-4423.
36. Richardson, C. J., 1999. Plenary session presentation: ecological functions of wetlands in the landscape. In Lewis, M. A., F. L. Mayer, R. L. Powell, M. K. Nelson, S. J. Klaine, M. G. Henry & G. W. Dickson (eds), Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment for Wetlands. SETAC Press, Pensacola: 9-25.
37. Rykeil, E. J., 1984. General hydrology and mineral budgets for Okefenokee Swamp. In Cohen, A. D., D. J. Casagrande, M. J. Andrejko & G. R. Best (eds), The Okefenokee Swamp: Its Natural History, Geology, and Geochemistry. Wetland Surveys, Los Alamos: 212-222.
38. Scheuhammer, A. M., M. W. Meyer, M. B. Sandheinrich & M. W. Murray, 2007. Effects of environmental methylmercury on the health of wild birds, mammals, and fish. AMBIO 36: 12-18.
39. Scrimgeour, G. J., W. M. Tonn, C. A. Paszkowski & C. Goater, 2001. Benthic macroinvertebrate biomass and wildfires: evidence for enrichment of boreal subarctic lakes. Freshwater Biology 46: 367-378.
40. Sigler, J. M., X. Lee & W. Munger, 2003. Emission and long-range transport of gaseous mercury from a large-scale Canadian boreal forest fire. Environmental Science & Technology 37: 4343-4347.
41. Thorp, J. H. & A. P. Covich, 1991. Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates. Academic Press, Inc., San Diego.
42. Turner, A. M. & J. C. Trexler, 1997. Sampling aquatic invertebrates from marshes: evaluating the options. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 16: 694-709.
43. U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1991. Methods for the Determination of Metals in Environmental Samples. EPA-600/4-91-010. USEPA, Cincinnati.
44. U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1996. Method 3052: Microwave Assisted Acid Digestion of Siliceous and Organically Based Matrices, Rev. 0. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington.
45. White, J. R., L. M. Gardner, M. Sees & R. Corstanje, 2008. The short-term effects of prescribed burning on biomass removal and the release of nitrogen and phosphorus in a treatment wetland. Journal of Environmental Quality 37: 2386-2391.
46. Wilcox, D. A., J. E. Meeker, P. L. Hudson, B. J. Armitage, M. G. Black & D. G. Uzarski, 2002. Hydrologic variability and the application of index of biotic integrity metrics to wetlands: a great lakes evaluation. Wetlands 22: 588-615.
47. Winger, P. V. & P. J. Lasier, 1997. Fate of Airborne Contaminants in Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. USGS-BR Division, Athens.
48. Wolfe, M. F., S. Schwarzbach & R. A. Sulaiman, 1998. Effects of mercury on wildlife: a comprehensive review. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 17: 146-160.
49. Yin, Z., 1993. Fire regime of the Okefenokee Swamp and its relation to hydrological and climatic conditions. International Journal of Wildland Fire 3: 229-240.
50. Zillioux, E. J., D. B. Porcella & J. M. Benoit, 1993. Mercury cycling and effects in freshwater wetland ecosystems. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 12: 2245-2264.