Open Access Kent State (OAKS)

As the aesthetic and economic values of streams become increasingly recognized, restoration efforts of riparian zones and stream channels are consequently becoming more common. Typical restoration efforts include activities such as adding rocks to enhance substrate heterogeneity and planting vegetation to promote stream-bank stability, as well as create more niches for organisms to utilize. Stream restoration aims to improve overall diversity of aquatic and streamside invertebrate communities. However, typical measures of restoration success often focus solely on aquatic invertebrate communities while riparian communities are also likely influenced by the changes to their environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how stream restoration affects diversity and structure of invertebrate communities. We hypothesized that the riparian zones of restored streams would have higher invertebrate diversity and richness than unrestored and natural stream riparian zones due to the present goal of streams to promote diversity of plants, insects, and animals in the area. However, we further hypothesized that restored riparian zones would have lower invertebrate abundance as they have had a less time to establish a community. Streams in this study were examined in the Geauga and Cleveland Metroparks areas. We sampled invertebrate communities using pitfall traps placed along the side of the stream banks and over 140 samples were collected altogether. Results thus far have shown no major differences in abundances of invertebrates between each stream type, but there are still many samples to be sorted and we are hoping to find more interesting results in the near future.