Water Quality Evaluation of Lake Springfield and the Emiquon Preserve using Macroinvertebrates

Davis, Nathan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/128601 Copy

Description

Title

Water Quality Evaluation of Lake Springfield and the Emiquon Preserve using Macroinvertebrates

Author(s)

Davis, Nathan

Issue Date

2025-05-06

Keyword(s)

Biology

Date of Ingest

2025-06-02T14:07:25-05:00

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to use macroinvertebrates to evaluate the water quality of Lake Springfield versus that of the Emiquon Preserve. Macroinvertebrates are used to evaluate water quality, diversity, richness and overall health of freshwater ecosystems (Herman et al. 2015). Lake Springfield and the Emiquon Preserve were chosen as study sites as they are geographically similar water bodies but are assumed to be antithesis of each other. Lake Springfield is composed of 3,965 acres and taken care of by City Water, Light and Power (CWLP). Pollution is a major issue for Lake Springfield as it comes from many sources of pollution originators (Lake Springfield 2017). The Emiquon Preserve is composed of 2,723-ha with 90% of it being a floodplain west of the Illinois River. Since 2007 The Nature Conservancy has worked to ecologically restore the preserve (Lemke et al. 2017). This study was conducted at three sites, two on Lake Springfield and one at the Emiquon Preserve. Samples were collected using two different methodologies. The first involved collecting rocks at 1 meter intervals along a 20 meter transect parallel to shore (Wilson et al. 2020). Macroinvertebrates were also collected with 1 meter square d-net sweeps every 5 meters (total 5 sweeps) along the same transect (McIntosh et al. 2019). Each macroinvertebrate was identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible (class, family, genus, or species). Using the pollution tolerances based on the identifications of the specimens the water quality was evaluated using the Hilsenhoff Biotic Index and the Macroinvertebrate Index. The Shannon-Wiener Diversity and Simpson Diversity Indexes were also used. It was found that overall, the Maple Grove site at Lake Springfield displayed similar scores to the Emiquon Preserve site. The other Lake Springfield site had mixed results, primarily marked by very low numbers in the sweeps. This suggests that Lake Springfield may have ranges in water quality based on geography and use. This pilot study indicates the need for a more in-depth analysis of Lake Springfield.

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

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