MEIOFAUNAL ABUNDANCE 191 



vegetative reclamation in the 1950s, is a chronically acid mine- 

 polluted stream (Napier and Hummon, 1976), particularly the lower 

 site, which is located just below an old, but extensive, tipple zone. 

 Long Run is situated in an area in which there was some stripping in 

 the 1950s; judging by its macrofauna (Feldner and Stanley, 1976), 

 however, the stream may have recovered from some of the adverse 

 effects of acid mine effluents. The unnamed stream adjacent to Tick 

 Ridge receives water from a 13- to 14-ha area that was stripped during 

 the 1970s and reclaimed according to current practices. Margaret 

 Creek and Strouds Run are streams in watersheds with no history of 

 coal mining. Five of the seven streams were sampled at upstream 

 (upper) and downstream (lower) sites. For the two other streams, 

 Margaret Creek and Strouds Run, sites were chosen on different 

 branches. 



Both sites for a given stream were collected on the same day. 

 Sites were located at least 400 m, usually 1 km or more, apart. Each 

 site was sampled for meiofauna following a regular pattern. A 

 transect was oriented perpendicular to stream flow, running from an 

 emergent sand bar into deeper water covering submerged but 

 continuous sandy substratum. Samples were taken from four coring 

 stations, whose surface elevations were located at +2 cm (bar 

 station), —3 cm (stream-edge station), and —10 cm and —20 cm 

 (midstream stations) with respect to the stream surface. 



Four sediment cores were taken at each coring station. A 20-cm^ 

 disposable plastic syringe (2.68-cm^ surface) with its tip cut off 

 operated as a suction corer. Three sediment cores were fractioned, 

 and the to 1, 1 to 2, 3 to 4, and 6 to 7-cm core depths were used 

 for faunistic analysis. Thus there were 4 stations x 4 sample depths 

 per station, or 16 samples, x 3 subsample replicates per sample, or a 

 total of 48 subsamples. Replicates from eight samples were treated 

 individually as splits (8x3 = 24), and those from the other eight 

 samples were combined and treated as grouped subsamples 

 (8 X 1 = 8). This reduced by one-third the number of entities to be 

 examined. Selection of those samples in which subsample replicates 

 would be grouped was made by a stratified random process, such 

 that two of four samples per station and two of four samples per 

 depth would be included, based on a 4 x 4 matrix of stations and 

 depths. The fourth sediment core was reserved for sedimentary 

 analysis. 



Physical— chemical data were also collected from the stream and 

 from interstitial water allowed to seep into a hole dug in the sandbar 

 adjacent to the stream. Air, stream water, sediment surface, and 

 interstitial water temperatures were measured with a laboratory 



