Overview
During spring and summer 2003, three undergraduate students from Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU) are collecting aquatic critters from the Rush River to determine the biological health of the river. Jenny Mocel, Alicia Hachfield and Jesse Neyens are spending their summer collecting and identifying these critters that live under rocks, branches and other debris in the Rush River. The critters, known as macroinvertebrates, come in many different shapes and colors, and most are under 1/2 inch in size. The students are collecting these "bugs" at several monitoring sites in the Rush River Watershed. The students collect the macroinvertebrates monthly from traps that are set out at each of the monitoring sites.

Studying the type and number of these critters in the river is important as it can tell us the biological health of the river. As some macroinvertebrates live in dirty water and some clean, we are able to identify how healthy the river is, or in this case, each branch of the Rush River.

The MSU students will finish the macroinvertebrate study fall 2003.

Publications
The Rush River Macroinvertebrates Research Report