28th Annual Student Research Conference
Examination of Stream Health in Tropical Forests of Costa Rica and Nicaragua
Bing Q. Zheng
Dr. LaRoy Brandt, Faculty Mentor
Rainforests contribute significantly to the biodiversity in the world. Meanwhile, they also play an important role in monitoring regional and global climates. However, there is a drastic rainforest loss due to the migration of human activities into these areas. As an important part of the ecosystem, streams are subject to the changes in the rainforests, and in turn, they can be measured to estimate the overall rainforest health. This study focused on obtaining baseline data on water quality in two tropical forests. The results suggested: potential stream differences between dry forest and wet forest; the streams in wet forests were in a healthy state regardless of the fact that the water quality ratings of these streams using Missouri Stream Team method were low. Thus, long-term monitoring of these streams is recommended to better compare these two types of forests and to generate a standard for tropical forest stream health evaluation.
Keywords: tropical forest , macroinvertebrates , stream , Costa Rica , Ometepe
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: 3-15
Location: GEO-SUB
Time: 3:30