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Field Comparison of Three Devices Used to Sample Substrate in Small Streams
Author(s) -
Grost Richard T.,
Hubert Wayne A.,
Wesche Thomas A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
north american journal of fisheries management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1548-8675
pISSN - 0275-5947
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8675(1991)011<0347:fcotdu>2.3.co;2
Subject(s) - core (optical fiber) , shovel , sampling (signal processing) , substrate (aquarium) , streams , core sample , mineralogy , environmental science , geology , materials science , composite material , archaeology , physics , computer science , geography , computer network , oceanography , detector , optics
We conducted a field study to compare the composition of substrate samples collected from small streams with three types of samplers: an excavated‐core sampler, a single‐probe freezecore sampler, and a shovel. Large particles (>50 mm in diameter) occurred most frequently in excavated‐core samples (76%) and least frequently in freeze‐core samples (52%), but they had the greatest influence on overall sample composition when they occurred in freeze‐core samples. Excavated‐core and shoveled samples did not differ significantly in composition, but freeze‐core samples differed significantly from both excavated‐core and shoveled samples for some particle sizes. When freeze‐core samples were divided into halves, the lower portion contained significantly more fine particles than the upper portion. We concluded that the freeze‐core sampler does not produce samples similar to excavated‐core samples and is too expensive and cumbersome for routine management applications. Conversely, the shovel produces substrate samples similar to those obtained with an excavated‐core sampler, and it is the least expensive and least cumbersome of the samplers. Field biologists should consider the shovel a viable alternative to an excavatedcore sampler when sampling streams similar to the ones we studied.