Benthic Invertebrate Monitoring - 2014

Monitoring bottom-dwelling aquatic invertebrate communities on Kahshe Lake has been carried out by the District Municipality of Muskoka (DMM) since 2003. This type of monitoring provides an indirect measure of water quality and habitat disturbance, as the composition of the benthic community and the relative abundance of different species provides an indicator of the health of the ecosystem as different species have different sensitivities to environmental changes such as pollution or habitat alteration.

Monitoring on Kahshe Lake is carried out at two locations as shown in the 2013 Lake Steward Report.

This year, the sampling was carried out on August 21 at Site 2.  Once three replicates of sediment (bottom mud) from the shoreline area were collected by DMM biotechnician Dylan Moesker, volunteers from Kahshe Lake (Clare Henderson and his sons Scott and Paul and grandson Alex, Toby Fletcher, Nancy Purkis and her grandson Finn, Alex and Joan Milburn and Miranda Virtanen from the Georgian Bay Turtle Hospital) got to work counting them on the Pearson cottage deck. My wife Gail kept the coffee flowing and organized a great lunch (compliments of the KLRA) for everyone when the counting was done. 

The DMM will be providing me with the results of the counting in a few weeks, and once I have the results, they will be incorporated into the 2014 Lake Steward Report.

Many thanks to all the volunteers who made this year’s count a success.

Ron Pearson – KLRA Lake Steward