DETECTING HUMAN IMPACTS ON LIVE-DEAD MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITIES IN HONEOYE LAKE, NEW YORK

Anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, industry, and tourism, have an enormous impact on modern environments. In particular, lake ecosystems can be impacted by large-scale perturbations and susceptible to human impacts that leave a record of environmental change within the living and dead community, sediments and water.

The goal of this project is to assess the ecosystem of Honeoye Lake, a finger lake in Ontario County, New York, by comparing the macroinvertebrate death assemblages and their mineralized chemistries to that of the living community. Honeoye Lake is heavily influenced by human activity that includes housing developments, a public boat launch in the south, and a man-made beach in the north. Surface sediments and water samples were collected at each end of the lake to determine the location of prevalent human impacts. We predict that the northern region of the lake will demonstrate a more impacted community influenced by the common occurrence of beach renourishment and high housing density based on the skeletal chemistry and live-dead agreement in the surface sediments.

Surface samples were collected from both the north and south along a 40 meter transect at ten meter increments from shore. Water quality measurements such as pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and dissolved solids were collected from each sampling location. Upon collection, live organisms were identified and counted. Sediment samples were then dried and hand sieved. Whole and fragmented skeletal remains of macroinvertebrates were collected, counted and identified to the species level.

Quantitative analysis of live-dead species will be conducted to determine the agreement between live and dead communities. The amount of chemical contaminants captured in the skeletonized remains will be determined using ICP-MS. Based on the quantitative analyses, the expected results are that there is a greater abundance and diversity of live and dead macroinvertebrates in the southern region of Honeoye whereas there are more contaminants in the north. We hope to show that the live and dead community will show a negative relationship between the ecosystem and human impacts over the last few decades.