Experimental flow manipulation at SNARL
SNARL is the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory near Mammoth Lakes, CA. This site contains a set of nine experimental stream channels which allow for the manipulation of numerous environmental variables.
As the hydrological cycle shifts in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, aquatic taxa are subject to flow regimes markedly different from the past. In this region in particular, peak snowfall is projected to occur earlier in the winter, with peak snowmelt also shifted towards earlier in the spring. With this shift, we are seeing many historically perennial rivers running dry in the late summer. With taxa in this region adapted to a perennial hydrograph, we were curious how a shift towards intermittent flow regimes would affect patterns in benthic invertebrate community abundance, richness, and dissimilarity at different drought treatments.