• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.10-25
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• 2018

This study was conducted to estimate the habitat suitability of 17 benthic macroinvertebrate taxa in the Hwayang stream. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) of benthic macroinvertebrates from the Hwayang stream was developed based on three physical habitat factors which include current velocity, water depth, and the substrate. The Weibull model was used as a probability density function to analyze the distribution of individual abundance by physical factors. The number of species and the total individual abundance increased along with the increase in current velocity. By means of Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), the relative importance of each factor was determined in the following order: current velocity, water depth, and the mean diameter. The results depicted that, the most influential factor in the growth of benthic macroinvertebrates in the Hwavang system was current velocity. After comparing the analyzed results from the Hwayang stream with the resukts from the Gapyeong stream, the integrated HSI was drawn. The results indicated that current velocity and substrate had similar distributions of HSI in the two streams. This was due to the addition of unmeasured data from previous surveys, or the fact that benthic macroinvertebrates adapted to deeper waters in the Hwayang Stream. Most taxa showed a clear preference for a fast current velocity, deep water depth and coarse substrate except Baetiella, Epeorus, (mayflies), and Hydropsyche (caddisfly).