CORRELATIONS OF WATER-QUALITY, SEDIMENTS AND BENTHIC INVERTEBRATES INELL-REN RIVER, TAIWAN

The correlations of benthic invertebrates, sediments aid water quality were investigated at two stations in the Ell-Ren river of Taiwan by m eans of statistical analysis every two months during a one year period . A total of 8 aquatic insect species and 2 annelid species were colle cted. Based upon the statistical analyses, several significant correla tions for the population of benthic invertebrates and heavy metal cont ents of sediment were found between Simulium sp. and ''adsorptive and exchangeable'' lead Simulium sp. ''bound to carbonates'' copper as wel l as Baetis sp. and ''bound to carbonates'' chromium. Results of stepw ise multiple regression indicated that the heavy metal contents of sed iment could explain a considerable portion of the variance in the popu lation of benthic invertebrates. ''Adsorptive and exchangeable'' lead accounted for 86.2% of the variance of the population of Simulium sp. while ''Bound to carbonates'' chromium retained 81.5% of the variance of the population of Baetis sp.