Amber Daigneault
AP Enviro
10/3/13
According to the data collected the Willimantic River has higher water quality than one would
assume. There are thirteen different taxa richness that were collected during this experiment. Only
having thirteen different species shows that the water quality is low and moderately impacted but, the
validity is also low because all of the species may not have been collected. During this experiment the
EPT taxa richness was also study, having a total of six. Knowing that these types of species can only
survive in slightly polluted waters demonstrates that the water is slightly impacted. Some of these
species such as the Ephemeroptera from the family of Ephemerellidae have a pollution tolerance of one
meaning that they physically cannot live in high polluted waters. The HBI was also tested as 2.81 which
would fall in the category of nonimpacted but with the other data we can conclude that since it is closer
to 4.50 than 0 it could possibly be more accurate under slightly impacted. Having this data the
Willimantic river is slightly impacted even though the taxa richness, EPT taxa richness and the HBI all fall
under different categories.