Collecting Insects in Kanab Creek

Introduction:

Kanab is a small town in southern Utah, enormous red rock surround it. The rocks were formed 144-208 million years ago and are 200-2,000 feet thick. Over time the rocks have been weathered and eroded by wind, water, ice, plants and other rocks have eroded the giant cliffs that surround the area. The rocks here look as though they were stacked on top of each other because of the cross bedding that occurred during their formation.

Over this there are a deep, red stains that cover some of this cross bedding called desert varnish. The desert varnish is from iron oxide. The sand that basically covers everything else there is the same red as the rock and very fine, it can be up to only 10 millimeters wide. The plants that grow here vary; there are trees, bushes, wild flowers and much more. Some of the common plants you will find are Utah junipers, big sage, desert paintbrush and more. These are called Xyric plants because they require less water than maybe tamarisk or coyote willow that you will find near Kanab Creek. Over time this creek created a small slot canyon and the creek runs through the middle. This creek is an oasis for many different plants and animals. Overall, Angel Canyon is very beautiful.
In Kanab we conducted our lab in Kanab Creek in Angel Canyon. Our lab was to collect bugs from different parts of the creek. We chose to collect bugs from the creek because it would give us an idea of how clean the water is. It would do this because depending on how many of each type of bugs were in the creek and their tolerance to pollution, we would know how clean the water is and if it was being polluted. This experiment also shows a feature of the deserts microhabitats because it shows what different habitats different bugs prosper in. for example, if a mouse ate a certain type of insect and then a type of snake ate the mouse then the snake wouldn’t have his food source and the entire eco system would be thrown off because of the insect. Before we went on the trip my group was expecting a larger creek with a larger abundance of bugs, even though it wasn’t what we expected we still managed to collect many bugs and successfully complete the lab.
Experimental Design

Insects in Kanab Creek
Area: Type of Bug: Amount found:
Rocky Midge Larva 2
Rocky Mayfly Larva 4
Rocky Beautiful Tiger Beetle 1
Rocky Riffle Beetle 1
Rocky Cricket 1
Plant Area Riffle Beetle 1
Plant Area Segmented Worm 1
Plant Area Mayfly larva 1
Plant Area Blackfly Larva 1
Plant Area Common Water Strider 1
Plant Area Flying Ant (terrestrial and dead in the water) 1
Sandy Segmented Worm 1

Analysis My Group decided to collect insects from the river. We collected bugs from sandy areas, rocky areas and areas with plants growing in the water. We collected the bugs by kicking up the sand and collecting them in a large net. The two commonalities we found in the data were the mayfly larva which we found in both rocky and plant areas and the Segment Worm in both Sandy and plant areas. At first it was difficult for