Macrophyte & Invertebrate Survey
Recently I’ve been working with Sunderland City Council to create a baseline of a fishing lake using PSYM method. It involves surveying aquatic plants and invertebrates along with some environmental parameters. This method provides with an indication of the lakes health.
The identification of aquatic plants is to species level; however invertebrates are only taken to family level. I’ve taken an invertebrate sample that represented all mesohabitas of the lake and identified them to species level in the lab. To speciate tiny invertebrates the microscopy work becomes essential as sometimes it’s the hairs arrangements on the legs or a presence of a gill makes the difference between one species to another!
The lake will be undergoing habitat improvement works, therefore a more thorough survey and aspecies list will inform the Council of the effects of the enhancement on the biota. The PSYM survey will be carried out again in the coming years. For the moment the survey data is being processes by the Freshwater Habitat Trust, who will use their computer programme to generate an overall score of the health of the pond. The overall picture that I’ve got from the sample is that the fauna is good, and with
control of added nutrients (mainly wildfowl poo!) the pond can be improved.
A non-aquatic species that highlighted the survey was a larva of an elephant hawk moth (Deilephila elpenor) spotted on the waterside.
An Interesting Find!
