Inventory of Biological Investigations Related to Stream Water Quality in the South Platte River Basin, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming

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Chadwick and Associates, 1986; Hermann and others, 1986; Rader and Ward, 1987x, b; Evans, 1988; Bergey and Ward, 1989; Wu, 1989; Kondratieff and others, 1990; Marmonier and Ward, 1990; Ruiter, 1990; Lehnertz, 1991; Ruby and others, 1991; Ward and Kondratieff, 1992; McCafferty and others, 1993). Six studies were on the effect of reservoirs on inverte- brates (Ward, 1974, 1976, 1987; Gray and Ward, 1982; Cline and Ward, 1984; Zimmerman and Ward, 1984). Four studies reported invertebrate distributions along an altitudinal gradient (Ward and Berner, 1980; Ward, 1981, 1982, 1986). Three studies reported on invertebrate communities in relation to water quality (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1972; Woodling, 1977; Deacon and Vaught, 1993). One study reported on the long -term trends in the macroin- vertebrate communities in the Cache la Poudre River (N.H. Voelz, J.V. Ward, and K.L. Martin, written commun., 1993). One study reported on the relation of discharge fluctuation on invertebrate communities (Canton and others, 1984), and one study reported on the effect of highway construction on invertebrates (Cline and others, 1982). There is abundant informa- tion about the invertebrate communities in the moun- tain region and limited information about invertebrate communities in the plains region. Fish Communities Fish community studies were the most wide- spread throughout the South Platte River Basin (table 1). There were only 7 studies published from 1891 to 1950 on fish communities, and the remaining 36 studies were published after 1950. Of the 43 inves- tigations concerning fish, 13 examined sites in moun- tains and in plains, 12 examined sites only in the mountains, 1 examined sites in the mountains and tran- sition zone, 4 examined sites only in the transition zone, 2 examined sites in the transition zone and plains, and 11 examined sites only in the plains. The types of fish investigations included 12 studies on sport fisher- ies management (Hepworth, 1973; Marshall, 1973; Goettl, 1980, 1981, 1982; Wiltzius, 1981; Culver and Bestgen, 1983, 1986; Anderson and Nehring, 1985; Rosenlund and Stevens, 1988, 1990; Stevens and Rosenlund, 1990). Six studies were on fish identifica- tion or a historical perspective (Jordan, 1891; Juday, 1904, 1905; Cockerell, 1908; Ellis, 1914; Beckman, 1952). Ten studies described fish distribution on a sub - basin or basin scale (Johnson, 1942; Li, 1968; Baxter and Simon, 1970; Propst, 1982; Bestgen and Culver, 1985; Woodling, 1985; Chadwick & Associates, Inc., 1986; Propst and Carlson, 1986; Chart and others, 1987; Lehnertz, 1991). Similarly, two studies describe the status and trends of the fish communities at four sites in the Big Thompson River, near Loveland, Colorado (K.R. Bestgen and K.D. Fausch, written commun., 1993a), and at 10 sites in the Cache la Poudre River, from Fort Collins to Greeley, Colorado (K.R. Bestgen and K.D. Fausch, written commun., 1993b). Four studies reported information on single species of fish (Andrews, 1970; Platania and others, 1986; Bestgen, 1989; Propst and Carlson, 1989), and two studies described the fish community in relation to water quality (Woodling, 1977; Lewis and Saunders, 1985). Three studies described fish distribution on a local scale (Hendricks, 1950; Boaze, 1977a, b), one study related discharge to fish communities (Canton and others, 1984), one study described food habits of fish (Eder and Carlson, 1977), one study described the fish communities in irrigation ditches ( Platania, 1990), and one study described the development of an index of biotic integrity for fish communities in the South Platte River Basin (Schrader, 1989). Habitat Characterization Of the 14 studies conducted measuring habitat characteristics, 13 studies were in the plains, and only 1 study was in the mountains. In the Great Plains province, eight studies described flood -plain vegeta- tion (Christy, 1972a, b; Jackson, 1972; Jackson and Lindauer, 1978; Lindauer, 1983; Sedgwick and Knopf, 1989; Snyder and Miller, 1991; Johnson, 1994), and five studies discussed flood -plain vegetation in relation to flow regime or geomorphology (Williams, 1978; Crouch, 1979; Eschner and others, 1983; Knopf and Scott, 1990; Friedman, 1993). The study of flood -plain vegetation in the mountains (Reid and Bock, 1978) only described results of multivariate analyses and did not describe the types of vegetative community. As a result, there is an information gap for habitat character- istics in the mountains and the transition zone. Chemicals in Organism Tissue There have been only five studies on chemical contamination in fish tissue conducted in the South Platte River Basin, and all the studies had sites that were located in the plains. Two studies reported only organochlorine contaminants in fish tissue (Schmitt and others, 1990; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1992), and two studies reported only trace elements in fish tissue (Walsh and others, 1977; Lowe and others, 1985). DeWeese and others (1993) measured organochlorines and trace elements in fish, crayfish, filamentous algae, and sediments. There is a basinwide gap in information on chemicals in organism tissue. INVENTORY OF BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS