Aquatic Invertebrate Monitoring Data for Buffalo National River, Ozark National Scenic Riverways and Multiple Small Stream Park Units throughout the Midwest, 2005-2024 - Data Package

This monitoring dataset consists of aquatic invertebrate community data for Buffalo National River, Ozark National Scenic Riverways and multiple small stream park units throughout the Midwest. The dataset includes invertebrate counts, site conditions, water quality and habitat measures, and stream discharge data for aquatic invertebrate communities in Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network Parks. The dataset includes approximately 70,000 individual observations covering approximately 330 taxa of aquatic invertebrates observed at 11 NPS park units taken between 2005 and 2024. The overall goals of Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network aquatic invertebrate community program are to monitor temporal changes in aquatic invertebrate communities and relations between the invertebrate communities and environmental factors. This monitoring information can be used by park managers to evaluate the effects of past and future activities and management decisions (either by park managers or others) on aquatic invertebrate communities. The specific objectives for aquatic invertebrate community monitoring are to assess the natural and anthropogenic processes influencing invertebrate communities, and to incorporate the spatial relationship of benthic invertebrates with their local habitat, including discharge rates, substrate size and embeddedness and water quality parameters (temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, specific conductance, and turbidity).