This year at the Crawford County Fair, we taught the youth and youthful at heart about aquatic invertebrates (water bugs). Aquatic invertebrates are amazing and engaging critters. These critters help us better understand the greater ecosystems that they are an important part of.
We had participants use a biotic index to get an idea of how to assess water quality based on the aquatic invertebrates present in our samples that we collected from a near by stream. Since some aquatic invertebrates have different pollution tolerances, a sampling of aquatic invertebrates can help us rate water bodies as having poor, good, or excellent water quality with the absence or presence of pollution intolerant aquatic invertebrates.
To learn more about aquatic invertebrates or to learn how to monitor water quality, contact us at contact@crawfordstewardship.