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Montana Streams Essay

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Stream Compositions Role in Detrital Breakdown in two Montana streams Abstract As the human population grows to unprecedented levels reducing our impact on water resources is of utmost importance. The significance of our effect on freshwater becomes much greater as more people are relying more on safe, sustainable water therefore; we must try to understand every component of our ecosystems. With increases in human population nutrient loading has increased in our waterways through fertilizer runoff of agricultural lands and through waste water treatment facility stream enrichment. Nutrient enrichment has been studied more with excessive loading from agriculture and also untreated waste water, but the effects of nutrient loading from modern waste treatment facilities is lack luster. Our designed experiment tested the effect of external nutrient input into a stream on rate of leaf litter decomposition in two water systems. The study consisted of a single species of leaf, Populus balsamifera, we determined leaf breakdown rates using percent leaf mass remaining over the eight week study. Also measured was the biomass of macroinvertebrates relative to the mass of the cottonwood leaves at three weeks. Our results showed a 2x greater leaf litter decomposition rate on Bozeman creek than the East Gallatin below the water reclamation facility and 4x greater rate than the East Gallatin above the water reclamation facility. Macroinvertebrate shredder numbers were the highest at the

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