摘要：Aquatic insect communities were quantitatively sampled from four streams within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Additionally, water quality and habitat variables, including water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, elevation, water depth, current velocity, dominant 'substrate, and canopy cover, were measured. Discriminant analysis, using water quality and habitat variables as predictors, reliably classified observations into stream groups, indicating that the four study streams could be separated based on water quality and habitat. Resolution between stream communities, using taxon density predictor variables, increased when chironomids were identified to genus compared to pooling them at the family-level of identification. Genus-level identification of Chironomidae also provided a more accurate assessment of variability within the aquatic insect community of each study stream.
