Data+Analysis+√

When you evaluate the data, you can deduce that the stream's quality rating would be fair. This is because the stream contains many sensitive organisms and the more tolerant organisms are less abundant. Below the reasons behind this will be further discussed.

Sensitive organisms such as stonefly nymphs, mayfly nymphs, and caddisfly larva mean that the conditions in a stream are optimal for life. This is because the organisms are pollution-sensitive and would easily die if there was much pollution in the water. Crayfish, of which there were 21 in our two kick tests (see prodcedure), are part of a semi-sensitive group. There would be more of these with semi-polluted water because the sensitive organisms would die and allow them to flourish. The presence of few of these organisms means that the stream is in good health when it comes to pollution. Finally, the tolerant group of macroinvertebrates are ones that very few of is a good thing. They survive in the worst possible conditions; meaning that they flourish if the sensitive and semi-sensitive organisms die due to unfavorable amounts of pollution.

When calculating the rating of a stream, there is a formula. In each group of taxa you must give each organism you observed an RA (Relative Abundance Weighting Factor) depending on the amount counted. With the formula, you must count the number of times an RA appears in each group of taxa and multiply it by a given number. For example, our group had two C weighted organism groups in taxa group one (sensitive organisms). This would be multiplied by 5.6 and then added to the other numbers found the same way to get a total. The totals from all three taxa (with group two being semi-sensitive and three being tolerant) will be added together and put on a scale to determine if the stream is rated good, fair, or poor. Using this procedure, we found that our tested stream was fair.