Passport to Texas

Dr. Grubh searching for bugs.

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This is Passport to Texas

The Blanco River flood of 2015 devastated vegetation along the river banks, and demolished river substrate.

These flood levels were really huge. Regular discharge on the Blanco river is about 90cfs, which means cubic feet per second, and it peaked around 150,000 cfs.

Archis Grubh is an aquatic biologist.

 I primarily focus on the invertebrates.

He says that flood knocked out nearly 90 percent of the river’s invertebrates, which are essentially aquatic bugs.

Invertebrates are really good indicators of water quality. Because, if the water quality is going down, those are the first ones to disappear from the water.

Since the flood, Dr. Grubh’s collected specimens, which he’s taken back to his lab.

We collect three samples; we just dump all whatever we have. There’s gonna be tons of insects packed in it. It’s very important, because I’m studying and finding out what all the diversity of these invertebrates are. So, I am capturing a snapshot here and recording what all we find.

Diversity means a healthier river ecosystem overall. Grubh’s research will help in future river management.

[I want to find out] Which ones were most affected and how they are doing now.

Learn more about Dr. Grubh and his work next week on a segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

The Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.