ABSTRACT:

The following standard operating procedure (SOP) was created for the the Aquatic Intermittency effects on Microbiomes in Streams (AIMS), an NSF EPSCoR funded project (OIA 2019603) seeking to explore the impacts of stream drying on downstream water quality across Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Idaho, and Mississippi. AIMS integrates datasets on hydrology, microbiomes, macroinvertebrates, and biogeochemistry in three regions (Mountain West, Great Plains, and Southeast Forests) to test the overarching hypothesis that physical drivers (e.g., climate, hydrology) interact with biological drivers (e.g., biogeochemistry, microbial and macroinvertebrate communities) to control water quality in intermittent streams. An overview of the AIMS project can be found here: https://youtu.be/HDKIBNEnwdM

This protocol will detail the process for collecting and storing benthic macroinvertebrates collected at AIMS sites. Benthic macroinvertebrates will be collected during regular sensor maintenance (Approach 1), during seasonal synoptics (Approach 2), and during the synoptic sampling (Approach 3). A video was created to detail this sampling method (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6niLLGBOoeU). Most samples were collected for DNA metabarcoding, although some samples were set aside for abundance data. From this SOP, the following data types will be created: Macroinvertebrate DNA sequences, presence / absence data, abundance data [AIMS rType: MACR]