Rocky riffles in rivers support a complex community of algae, bacteria, fungi and detritus often held together by a polysaccharide matrix. This biofilm provides food for invertebrates, some fish, platypus, rakali and turtles. Biofilms are scoured naturally by high flows. River regulation alters the timing, duration and frequency of biofilm scouring. Environmental flows downstream of dams, including translucent and transparent releases are designed to restore some of the variability of flow and allow scouring to reset early-stage biofilm, which is more palatable for aquatic animals. IMEF biofilm and invertebrate studies were performed in the Hunter and Murrumbidgee Rivers, testing the hypothesis (IMEF Hypothesis 4) that restoring some freshes and high flows would induce scouring of silt and biofilms and improved habitat quality for some invertebrate scrapers and their predators. Sites located on the Murrumbidgee River downstream of Burrinjuck Dam, received periodic environmental releases, between April and October, as well as irrigation flows and uncontrolled spills. Riffle rock biofilms, aquatic invertebrate metrics and water quality were compared with reference sites on the unregulated Goobarragandra and Goodradigbee rivers. Control sites were chosen on the Tumut River, which is regulated by Blowering Dam but unlike the Murrumbidgee River did not receive variable environmental releases. Note: If you would like to ask a question, make any suggestions, or tell us how you are using this dataset, please visit the NSW Water Hub which has an online forum you can join.

This dataset contains site information, watershed land cover, water chemistry, and proportions of fatty acids for periphyton and macroinvertebrates collected from stream sites. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Whorley, S., N. Smucker, A. Kuhn, and J. Wehr. Urbanisation alters fatty acids in stream food webs. FRESHWATER BIOLOGY. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, USA, 64(5): 984-996, (2019).

This dataset contains site information, watershed land cover, water chemistry, and proportions of fatty acids for periphyton and macroinvertebrates collected from stream sites. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Whorley, S., N. Smucker, A. Kuhn, and J. Wehr. Urbanisation alters fatty acids in stream food webs. FRESHWATER BIOLOGY. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, USA, 64(5): 984-996, (2019).

The data are species counts by location, as well as other environmental variables for each stream location sampled. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Stamp, J., A. Moore, S. Fiske, J. Gerritsen, B. Bierwagen, and A. Hamilton. Effects of Extreme High Flow Events on Macroinvertebrate Communities in Vermont Streams. River Research and Applications. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated, New York, NY, USA, 36(9): 1891-1902, (2020).

Data sets and individual XCD results used to develop the field-based benchmarks are available at the U.S. EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway (https://doi.org/10.23719/1371707) (Cormier, 2017). Data are contained in three zip files. The folder “Biological.zip” contains occurrences of benthic invertebrate genera in 24 state data sets. This paper uses only the data from West Virginia ecoregions 69 and 70. The folder “Environmental.zip” contains environmental data sorted into 24 data sets. The folder “model.zip” contains the calculated XC95 values, probability of observation plots as generalized additive models, and the cumulative frequency distribution for benthic invertebrate genera from WV69 and 70 plus data sets used to develop other models not discussed in this paper. A spreadsheet for calculating XC95 values and XCD05 is described in Cormier et al. (2018c). The tools, data sets, example calculations, and example outputs are available online at https://wiley.figshare.com/ieam and https://github.com/smcormier/Biological-Extirpation-Analysis-Tools-BEAT/releases/tag/v.1.0.2. Alternatively, calculation of XC95, GAM plots, XCD05 can be calculated using batch R-code. Similarly, the R-code and data sets are available on GitHub (https://github.com/leppott/XC95).

Data sets and individual XCD results used to develop the field-based benchmarks are available at the U.S. EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway (https://doi.org/10.23719/1371707) (Cormier, 2017). Data are contained in three zip files. The folder “Biological.zip” contains occurrences of benthic invertebrate genera in 24 state data sets. This paper uses only the data from West Virginia ecoregions 69 and 70. The folder “Environmental.zip” contains environmental data sorted into 24 data sets. The folder “model.zip” contains the calculated XC95 values, probability of observation plots as generalized additive models, and the cumulative frequency distribution for benthic invertebrate genera from WV69 and 70 plus data sets used to develop other models not discussed in this paper. A spreadsheet for calculating XC95 values and XCD05 is described in Cormier et al. (2018c). The tools, data sets, example calculations, and example outputs are available online at https://wiley.figshare.com/ieam and https://github.com/smcormier/Biological-Extirpation-Analysis-Tools-BEAT/releases/tag/v.1.0.2. Alternatively, calculation of XC95, GAM plots, XCD05 can be calculated using batch R-code. Similarly, the R-code and data sets are available on GitHub (https://github.com/leppott/XC95).