A grab for quantitative sampling in stream muds

✍ Scribed by J. B. Ford; R. E. Hall

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1958
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 293 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-5141
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00018692

✦ Synopsis

The apparatus was designed to enable a series of samples to be taken from small areas of mud from the bottom of a stream. One of the authors (J. B. F.) has reviewed elsewhere the various types of grabs and samplers developed for taking samples from the substratum.

For a variety of reasons none of the previously described sampling apparatus satisfied the needs of this investigation. These, stated briefly, were as follows.

1. It was essential that the sample taken should not be large. Indications were obtained that the young stages of the organisms being studied, namely larval Chironomidae, were highly aggregated in their distribution, and it was therefore important that the samples should not be so large as to obscure the aggregation. Furthermore the areas of mud at the side of the stream were small, and extensive sampling with a large sampler would be expected to cause alterations in the habitat.

2. Since the sieving of the sample through an 80 mesh to the inch sieve (JONASSON, 1955), and the sorting of the material so obtained,