Download (PDF 1.37 MB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/28285.pdf
Abstract
For over three decades, geologists, hydrologists and stream ecologists have shown significant interest in suspended load in running waters. Physical scientists have focused on turbidity, the development of sediment-rating curves and estimation of sediment yields, often as an indicator of changing land uses (Beschta 1981). Stream ecologists, on the other hand, have focused on 1) the role of suspended sediments in water quality degradation and its deleterious impacts on biological communities (for example, Waters 1995); or 2) its beneficial roles in providing food resources for filter-feeding invertebrates and as the major pathway of organic matter transport and export, linking upstream and downstream reaches and affecting such ecosystem processes as nutrient spiraling (Minshall and others 1983, 1985; Wallace and Grubaugh 1996). The focus of these interests has dictated the way in which sediment samples are examined. In many cases, the organics in suspended load samples are removed by ashing or chemical digestion. But physical scientists and stream ecologists concerned with the deleterious role of suspended sediments tend to discard data on the organic fraction (ash-free or carbon digested), while ecologists interested in its beneficial role discard information on the mineral fraction (ash or digestion residue).
Parent Publication
Citation
Madej, Mary Ann; Wilzbach, Margaret; Cummins, Kenneth; Ellis, Colleen; Hadden, Samantha. 2007. The Significance of Suspended Organic Sediments to Turbidity, Sediment Flux, and Fish-Feeding Behavior. In: Standiford, Richard B.; Giusti, Gregory A.; Valachovic, Yana; Zielinski, William J.; Furniss, Michael J., technical editors. 2007. Proceedings of the redwood region forest science symposium: What does the future hold? Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-194. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 383-388
