ASSOCIATIONS OF BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES WITH LOCAL STREAM GEOMORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES IN UNGLACIATED BASINS OF THE WESTERN ALLEGHENY PLATEAU

Natural distributions of benthic macroinvertebrates are strongly influenced by reach-level environmental features such as particle size distributions, embeddedness and local hydrological characteristics. In an effort to better understand the mechanistic linkages between reach-level geomorphology and the benthic fauna in the WAP ecoregion, we used ordination and clustering approaches to explore associations among macroinvertebrates (abundance, richness, diversity, ICI, MAIS, EPT taxa, etc.) and proximal physical features (Wolman and sieve particle distributions and channel dimensions) and hydrological variables at approximately 65 reaches, including 24 reference sites. We will discuss our findings as they relate to the development of models for predicting potential habitat available to macroinvertebrates.