Landscapes Forest and Global Change - ESA - Escola Superior ...

P.C. Goebel et al. 2010. How important are riparian forests to aquatic foodwebs in agricultural watersheds
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For all autotrophs, sampling was conducted by compositing subsamples from different habitats
within the selected reach, resulting in one sample per type of material sampled per site.
Macroalgae and macrophytes were randomly sampled through each reach. Macrophytes were
only present at six and five of the forested and non-forested sites, respectively. Epilithic
microfilm material was collected from cobbles with a brush. In addition to microalgae, these
samples might have contained some detrital material or heterotrophic bacteria. Thus, these
samples are referred to generally as epilithon, whereas the algal component of such sample
would be referred to as epilithic microalgae. In the lab, epilithon sample were filtered onto
precombusted GFF filters and invertebrates were removed. Samples of herbaceous species were
collected randomly in the riparian area. At the forested sites, leaves from the dominant three to
four riparian trees were collected. In the laboratory, all material was carefully washed and dried.
Three 1-L water samples were collected at the reach and brought back to the lab. Coarse
particulate organic matter (> 1mm), fine particulate organic matter (< 1mm, > 0.47μm) and
dissolved organic matter (