Speakers

Audrey B. Harrison, PhD

Audrey Harrison is a Research Entomologist in the Environmental Laboratory at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, MS. She has worked alongside the ERDC Fish & Invertebrate Ecology Team since 2009 where her research has focused on the ecology of some of the River’s smallest inhabitants. Her work seeks to understand community structure, biological response to environmental changes, food web interactions, habitat requirements, and ecological restoration.

Presentation Description

In 1824, the Corps of Engineers was tasked with improving the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers for navigation. The earliest improvements included the removal of snags and sandbars, and the first snag removal vessel, known as “Uncle Sam’s Tooth Puller,” was put into service in 1829. Other engineering acts, such as levee construction, channelization, and placement of river training structures, coupled with basin-wide deforestation, have led indirectly and directly to reduced input and retention of large woody debris in the Mississippi River. A large body of research acknowledges the importance of large woody debris in rivers and streams as habitat for invertebrates and fishes, and numerous restoration efforts worldwide include placement of trees and wood jams into streams and rivers. In an effort to restore large woody debris habitat in the Lower Mississippi River (LMR), we investigated the use of wood by riverine invertebrates, designed large-scale woody debris traps, and modeled their predicted benefit to the ecology of the LMR. Results from our research of invertebrate colonization on natural and artificial substrates in the LMR echoes the importance of large woody debris, as well as the leaf packs they entrap, as habitat for a diversity of macroinvertebrates. Almost 200 years later, a multi-agency collaboration has led to the placement of the first-of-their-kind large woody debris traps in the LMR.

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