• Trial, Joan Garner
  Maine Department of Conservation, Bureau of Forestry
  

Oak leaves in 5 g packs were used to study summer leaf processing in streams. Leaf processing was used to evaluate the stream protection strategies of unsprayed buffers and the concept of refugia. Leaf processing in a directly sprayed stream in Holeb, ME. was compared to processing in two unsprayed streams near Patton, ME. for a 142 day period beginning after spray application in June.

The different spray strategies of buffering, establishing refugia or spraying entire streams did not effect leaf processing for the first two weeks that oak leaves were available for colonization. However, over the 142 day period processing was significantly slower in the sprayed brook, Barrett Brook (-0.024 g/day) than in the control brooks (-0.032 g/day). This difference was probably due to significantly fewer Plecoptera shredders in Barrett Brook compared to Plecoptera numbers in the control brooks (Sargent and crystal). Plecoptera were the dominant shredders in all three brooks.