Sedimentation poses a significant threat to stream ecosystems throughout the world, and increases in bedload can be especially detrimental to benthic communities. To examine how increased bedload affects algal‐ and detrital based stream communities, we manipulated sediment (via daily sediment addition to 0.25‐m 2 areas of stream bottom) and top‐down effects of macroconsumers (fishes and crayfish, via electric exclusion) in two...