Student Research Reports

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The crayfish research in this study focused on a section of the Middle Branch of the Rouge River that flows through a portion of the Crestwood School District in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Crayfish traps were deployed at two locations in order to investigate the possible effect of lentic versus lotic habitats on crayfish populations. During the two months that this project collected data, no crayfish were found in the lentic (pond) floodplain site whereas there were a total of 29 crayfish trapped in the lentic (flowing) habitat of the river. A variety of atmospheric and water quality parameters were measured including air and water temperature, precipitation, conductivity, stream velocity, turbidity, and total solids. GLOBE protocols were used where available. The virile crayfish (Faxonius virilis) was the only species of crayfish that was collected during the project. In this investigation we noted that as air temperature increases, crayfish activity decreases. Low amounts of precipitation were noted during the dry summer of 2022. However, when precipitation increased, crayfish activity decreased. It was also noted that as precipitation increased, turbidity increased. A statistical analysis of the data failed to show any direct correlation between turbidity and crayfish activity. These conclusions are based on late summer and early fall data suggesting that additional research is needed for spring and early summer. Increasing the frequency that data is collected might improve the reliability of the data. This type of baseline research is essential as more extreme weather events continue to cause disruptions in local watersheds.