KSU Grad Student to study water quality at Mellinger Farm

     Alyssa Baxter, an ecology graduate student at Kent State University will be sampling stream water at the Mellinger Farm this year as part of a larger study looking at patterns in biotic, chemical and physical variables to the denitrifying community in agricultural and forested streams in Indiana and Ohio.
     Land use is a key factor determining conditions in streams. In particular, the effects of surrounding agriculture on streams include increased nutrient loads from fertilizer runoff that can lead to eutrophication as well as increased temperature, turbidity and algal growth. It is not well understood how agricultural runoff and subsequent eutrophication, coupled with changes in dissolved organic matter, affect the denitrifying community's abundance and diversity.
     This study seeks to determine how total bacterial abundance, algal growth, denitrifier abundance and diversity and the community of benthic invertebrates varies longitudinally in agricultural and mixed-use streams. Sampling under base flow conditions will be done three times throughout the year. Three streams from intensive agricultural areas and three streams with mixed land uses (forested, residential, low intensity agricultural) will be included in the study.
     The results of this study will be of particular importance for determining how the application of nitrogen fertilizers affects stream communities. The study will also impact our understanding of how denitrification can affect nitrogen loading and downstream transport in the Mississippi River watershed.

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