Welcome to the Seminole County Biomonitoring Program homepage.
Seminole County scientists have developed an advanced biological monitoring designed specifically for monitoring macroinvertebrate communities in Seminole County's waterbodies.
Click here to learn more about macroinvertebrates.
Newsflash: Not all bugs are bad!
Biologists and lake managers have found this to be true. In Seminole County, we use macroinvertebrates in our biomonitoring programs to assess the health of the water bodies in the county. Chemical water quality monitoring is important, but may give only a "snap shot" of the water segment's health. Biological monitoring, however, provides a better assessment of long term impacts. In addition, proper assessment (often referred to as bioassessment) can also help answer important questions such as:
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Are human activities affecting adjacent aquatic systems?
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Are Best Management Practices and current treatment levels satisfactory?
Macroinvertebrate populations are chosen for many reasons:
Learn to compare lake health by comparing their macroinvertebrates
As you visit the pages for the waterbodies included in the Macroinvertebrate Monitoring Program, you will notice that some waterbody locations are receiving better "grades" than others. Scientists at Seminole County and elsewhere use mathematical methods, referred to as indices, to take the types and numbers of macroinvertebrates found at a location and calculate the "health" of the waterbody at that location. The methods for collecting macroinvertebrates as well as the index they use is different depending on whether the waterbody is a stream or lake. For streams BioRecons and the Stream Condition Index (SCI) are employed and for lakes they use the Lake Condition Index (LCI) and dredge sampling. Click here to Learn more about macroinvertebrate indices.
