Riparian and landscape disturbance effects on stream fish community composition in an agriculturally-dominated drainage
Keywords:
riparian buffers, land use, fish guildsAbstract
We compared historical stream fish community sampling and remote sensing data from 1993–2011 in an agriculturally-dominated drainage basin to determine the effects of varying levels of riparian and landscape disturbances on fish communities. Stream fish guilds were analyzed with National Land Cover Database and aerial imagery products to quantify disturbance levels at a local and watershed scale. Insectivores and benthic insectivores were associated with intact riparian areas, whereas environmentally tolerant and omnivorous species were found in environments with degraded riparian areas. Riparian disturbances had the greatest effect near the stream (0–10 m), and the effects diminished with increasing distance from the stream. This spatial scale corresponds with those reported in the literature whereby allocthonous inputs and riparian filtering influenced stream fish communities and water quality. The landscape disturbance was not a strong predictor for any fish guild, indicating that local riparian conditions were more biologically meaningful. Considering the rapid rates of land conversion to production agriculture across the midwestern United States, ensuring adequate riparian buffering of streams may help protect specialist aquatic species and their habitat. Given the broad temporal and spatial nature of our data, these results suggest that targeted conservation of the 10-m scale of intact riparian vegetation directly adjacent to streams is a sound practice and should be considered the minimum conservation goal for watershed restoration in low-gradient landscapes historically dominated by agricultural land-use practices.
References
Abu-Zreig, M., Rudra, R., Whitely, H., Lalonde, M., Kaushik, N., 2003. Phosphorus removal in vegetated buffer strips. Journal of Environmental Quality 32, 613–619.
Allan, J.D., 2004. Landscapes and riverscapes: the influence of land use of stream ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 35, 257–284.
Barbour, M., Gerritson, J., Snyder, B., Stribling, J., 1999. Rapid bioassessment protocols for use in streams and wadeable river: periphyton, benthic macroinvertebrates, and fish. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
Barton, D., Taylor, W., Biette, R., 1985. Dimensions of riparian buffer strips required to maintain trout habitat in southern Ontario streams. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 5(3A), 364–378.
Congalton, R., Green, K., 2008. Assessing the accuracy of remotely sensed data: principles and practices. Edition 2. Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton, Florida.
Fry, J., Xian, G., Jin, S., Dewitz, J., Homer, C., Yang, L., Barnes, C., Herold, N., Wickham, J., 2011. Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 77(9), 858–864.
Goldstein, R., 1995. Aquatic communities and contaminants in fish in streams of the Red River of the North Basin, Minnesota and North Dakota. United States Geological Survey, Washington, DC.
Gosz, J., 1980. The influence of reduced streamflows on water quality. Energy development in the Southwest: Resources for the future 2, 3–48.
Hunt, R., 1993. Trout stream therapy. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin.
Jin, S., Yang, L., Danielson, P., Homer, C., Fry, J., Xian, G., 2013. A comprehensive change detection method for updating the National Land Cover Database to circa 2011. Remote Sensing of Environment 132, 159–175.
Karr, J., 1981. Assessment of biotic integrity using fish communities. Fisheries 6, 21–27.
Karr, J., Dudley, D., 1981. Ecological perspective on water quality goals. Environmental Management 5, 55–68.
Kauffman, J.B., Beschta, R., Otting, N., Lytjen, D., 1997. An ecological perspective of riparian and stream restoration in the western United States. Fisheries 22(5), 12–24.
Lee, K., Isenhart, T., Schultz, R., 2003. Sediment and nutrient removal in an established multi-species riparian buffer. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 58, 1–10.
Legendre, P., Legendre, L., 2012. Numerical ecology. Elsevier Science, New York, New York.
Leopold, L., Wolman, M., Miller, J., 1964. Fluvial processes in geomorphology. WH Freeman and Co., San Francisco, California.
Lyons, J., 2008. Red River of the North Fisheries Management Plan. Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources, North Dakota Game and Fish Dept., Manitoba Water Stewardship, South Dakota Dept. of Game, Fish and Parks.
Lyons, J., Trimble, S., Paine, L., 2000. Grass versus trees: managing riparian areas to benefit streams of central North America. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 36(4), 191–930.
MacKenzie, D., Nichols, J., Royle, J., Pollock, K., Bailey, L., Hines, J., 2006. Occupancy estimation and modeling: inferring patterns and dynamics of species occurrence. Elsevier, Boston, Massachusetts.
Marvier, M., Kareiva, P., Neuburt, M., 2004. Habitat destruction, fragmentation, and disturbance promote invasion by habitat generalists in a multispecies metapopulation. Risk Analysis 24(4), 869–878.
Mazerolle, M., 2014. Model selection and multimodel inference based on (Q)AIC(c). CRAN repository.
Menninger, H.L., Palmer, M., 2007. Herbs and grasses as an allochthonous resource in open-canopy headwater streams. Freshwater Biology 52, 1689–1699.
Nakano, S., Miyasaka, H., Kuhara, N., 1999. Terrestrial-aquatic linkages: riparian arthropod inputs alter trophic cascades in a stream food web. Ecology 80, 2435–2441.
Natural Resource Conservation Service. 2007. Riparian buffer conservation plan. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.
Niemela, S., Pearson, E., Simon, T., Goldstein, R., Bailey, P., 1998. Development of index of biotic integrity expectations for the Lake Agassiz Plain Ecoregion. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
Pflieger, W., 1997. The fishes of Missouri. Missouri Dept. of Conservation, Jefferson City, Missouri.
Probst, J.L., 1985. Nitrogen and phosphorus exportation in Garonne Basin, France. Journal of Hydrology 76, 281–305.
Pusey, B.J., Arthington, A., 2003. Importance of the riparian zone to the conservation and management of freshwater fish: a review. Marine and Freshwater Research 54(1), 1–16.
Rangel, T., Diniz-Filho, J., Bini, L., 2010. SAM: a comprehensive application for spatial analysis in macroecology. Recography 33, 46–50.
Renard, P., Hansen, S., Enblom, J., 1986. Biological Survey of the Red River of the North. Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources Special Publication No. 142.
Reynolds, J., 1996. Electrofishing. In: B. Murphy, D. Willis, D. (Eds.), Fisheries Techniques, pp. 221–253. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.
Richards, C., Johnson, L., Host, G., 1996. Landscape-scale influences on stream habitats and biota. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 53, 295–311.
Saunders, W.C, Fausch, K., 2007. Improved grazing management increases terrestrial invertebrate inputs that feed trout in Wyoming rangeland streams. Transaction of the American Fisheries Society 136(5), 1216–1230.
Schlosser, I.J., Karr, J., 1981. Water quality in agricultural watersheds: impact of riparian vegetation during base flow. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 17(2), 233–240.
Stoner, J., Lorenz, D., Wiche, G., Goldstein, R., 1993. Red River of the North Basin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Water Resources Bulletin 29, 575–615.
Strong, L.L., Sklebar, T., Kermes, K., 2010. North Dakota Gap Analysis Project. Final Report. U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, ND.
Thurston, R., Russo, R., Fetterolf, C., Edsall, T., Barber, Y., 1979. A review of the EPA red book: quality criteria for water. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.
Vogelmann, J., Howard, S., Yang, L., Larson, C., Wylie, B., VanDriel, N., 2001. Completion of the 1990's National Land-cover Data Set for the conterminous United States from Landsat Thematic Mapper data and ancillary data sources. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 67(6), 650–662.
Waters, T., 1995. Sediment in streams: sources, biological effects, and control. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.
Wenger, S., 1999. A review of the scientific literature on riparian buffer width, extent, and vegetation. University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
Wright, C.K., Wimberly, M., 2013. Recent land use changes in the Western Corn Belt threatens grasslands and wetlands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110(10), 4134–4139.
Yuan, Y., Bingner, R., Locke, M., 2009. A review of effectiveness of vegetative buffers on sediment trapping in agricultural areas. Ecohydrology 2, 321–336.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Manuscripts must be original. They must not be published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. It is required that the lead author of accepted papers complete and sign the MSU Press AEHM Author Publishing Agreement and provide it to the publisher upon acceptance.
