The Effects of a Thermal Point Pollution Source on the Macroinvertebrate Community in the North Fork of Strawberry Creek

To assess the effects of elevated temperature from a thermal effluent on the North fork of Strawberry Creek, we first identified similar reaches on the North and South forks for the appropriated test, control and reference site. A canyon site on the South fork of Strawberry creek boasted 17 families from the 194 invertebrates collected and was determined to be the reference site for our project. The remaining two sites were on the North Fork of Strawberry creek, located on the University of California at Berkeley campus. Both of the campus sites showed significantly less macroinvertebrate diversity at the family level. Thus using several biotic indices, we determined there to be a appreciable effects from the background pollution in the stream. The control site produced nine families from the 200 invertebrates collected, while the thermal effluent test site produced only 79 invertebrates representing seven families from the same sampling scheme. These data suggest that the studied thermal