Fishing for River Critters: the Importance of Wood as Bait

A river’s residents can tell us a lot about the health of their home. Groups of small insects and other river critters, called macroinvertebrates, can change if pollutants are affecting the river. We used snags in bags (basically pouches of wood and bark) as a new method for collecting critters in larger rivers in the southeast US. We compared the types and numbers of critters collected with snags to those collected with two other commonly used methods. We found snags to be a suitable method for collecting macroinvertebrates in large rivers, as these resemble an important habitat for river critters.