Effects of a golf course on stream nutrients and biota.

Abstract

Golf courses may contribute to nutrient loading in streams due to the runoff of fertilizers from the greens. We studied one site upstream and two sites downstream of Wilderness Golf Course to determine the effects of the golf course on Carp Lake River. We compared dissolved oxygen (DO), conductivity, temperature, discharge, nitrate, ammonium, soluble phosphorous, total phosphorous, EPT index, proportion Diptera, macro invertebrate abundance, functional feeding occurrences between scrapers and all other functional feeding groups, fish abundance, fish diversity and percentage of tolerant fish species between our upstream site at Munger Rd and our two downstream sites at Busted Knee Creek and Cecil Bay Rd. We predict that the downstream sites will contain more nutrients which will have various affects on the biota. We predict that there will be less macroinvertebrate diversity downstream. The proportion of Diptera and EPT index will decrease downstream as well. We also predict a smaller proportion of tolerant fish occurring downstream and a greater proportion of macroinvertebrates will occur downstream as well. We also predicted that nitrates would increase downstream as conductivity decreased. We also predicted that ammonium would decrease downstream due to nitrification by bacteria. We found an increase in nitrate downstream of the golf course. Total macroinvertebrate diversity changes little downstream. The proportion of Diptera downstream decreased downstream, while the EPT index rose downstream. A greater proportion of tolerant fish existed upstream. We conclude that although nutrient loading does occur downstream of the golf course at Busted Knee Creek and Cecil Bay Rd., the affects on the biota present is not as much as we had predicted.