Iowa DNR
BioNet
River & Stream Biological Monitoring
Fish and Benthic Macroinvertebrate Surveys
Physical Habitat Assessments

Little Waterman Creek Waterman Creek SWMA - Hartley (RMN Trend Site)

Analysis Summary for Series #2077

Benthic Macroinvertebrate Index of Biotic Integrity (BMIBI)

Metric Name Value Score
MH Total Taxa 17 4.39
SH Total Taxa 10.33 6.8
MH EPT Taxa 4 2.19
SH EPT Taxa 3 2.93
MH Sensitive Taxa 1 1.23
SH Ephem % 7.41 0.95
SH EPT % 20.33 2.13
SH Chiron % 43.85 5.67
SH Scraper % 11.22 2.51
SH Top3Dom % 70.78 6.7
SH Dom FFG % 69.7 5.05
MHBI 5.91 4.04
*Mouse-over metric for full name
**Final IBI is sum of scores multiplied by 0.8333

Analysis Factors

Factor Value
BMIBI Type Warm Water
Sample Date 8/28/2017
Sampling Series Series #2077
Drainage Area (mi2) 17.082
Log(DA) 1.2325387175306
Calculation Last Updated 7/22/2025 3:37:20 PM
Sampling Gear Surb
BMIBI Score
37
Warm Water
Fair
Series Analysis Notes

All riffles were very poorly colonized. Unsure if stream had very low flow previous to fairly substantial rain within last couple of weeks.

BMIBI Score Explained

This site was analyzed using the BMIBI-Warm Water assessment methodology.

Sites that score between 31 - 55 are considered fair. Total taxa richness and EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera) taxa richness are noticeably reduced from optimum levels; sensitive species and habitat specialists are rare; EPT taxa are still dominant in abundance; however, the most-sensitive EPT taxa have been replaced by ept taxa that are more tolerant of organic enrichment; the community is not well-balanced; a few taxa clearly dominate in abundance, collector-gatherers or collector-filterers often comprise more than 50% of the community.

This location has been classified as a Reference Site. Reference sites represent natural stream qualities that are least disturbed by human activities within the watershed. These sites are then grouped by ecoregion to establish a benchmark against which other streams in the same ecoregion are compared.

EcoRegion Comparison

Scores for a sampling session are compared against reference sites within the same ecoregion:

Northwest Iowa Loess Prairies

This site is in the Northwest Iowa Loess Prairies ecoregion.

Ecoregion Map
Max 88
75th Percentile 58
Median 51
25th Percentile 45
Min 10
This Session's Score 37
Total Reference Site Samples 45
Mean 50.91
Standard Deviation 13.26