Periphyton communities in streams of the Ozark Plateaus and their relations to selected environmental factors

During August through September of 1993- 95, 83 periphyton samples were collected at 51 stream sites in the Ozark Plateaus. These sites were categorized into six land-use categories (20 forest, 18 agriculture, 10 mining, 1 urban, 1 urban/ mining, and 1 mix), based on land-use percentages in the basin upstream from the site.

Results indicate that periphyton communities of riffles of Ozark streams are affected by natural and land-use related factors. These factors include nutrients, dissolved organic carbon, alkalinity, canopy shading, suspended sediment, embeddedness, stream morphometry, and velocity. For several measures of periphyton communities, statistically significant (p