Determining Stream Fish Trait-Environment Relationships across Systems, Scales, and Forms of Alteration
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Date
2023-10-04
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Abstract
Freshwater ecosystems are under increasing threat from the growing human population and its demand for freshwater resources. River basins are increasingly fragmented by reservoirs and low head dams as well as growing urban developments and land use change. Interests in conserving and restoring these systems is growing as understanding of the importance of their diversity and the ecological services that they provide becomes more widely spread. Ecological integrity assessments and ecological models are used to inform management and restoration efforts around the world. These models typically rely on taxonomic information or single species inputs; however, including more trait-based approaches would allow managers to make better informed decisions across species and at the community level. My thesis presents a generalizable and modular framework for incorporating trait-environment relationships as well as traits themselves into methodologies for future ecological integrity assessment frameworks and restoration planning. With regard to using traits to inform ecological integrity assessments, my results identified six functional traits that were consistently responsive across three forms of anthropogenic alterations to rivers. The consistency in the directionality of four out of the six trait relationships further supports their inclusion as indicators of stream alteration. Further, in terms of informing ecological models used for restoration, my results identified three significant relationships between morphological traits and mesohabitat variables related to stream hydraulics. These relationships were identified using fish community data that were collected across gradients of stream size, climate, and degree of alteration, thus supporting their potential as general structuring principles within stream fish communities. By analyzing stream fish traits and their potential relationships to anthropogenic alterations and natural environmental gradients, I demonstrated the importance and benefits of incorporating traits into future stream conservation, restoration, and management.
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Functional Traits, Conservation and Restoration, Trait-Environment Relationships, Community Ecology, Anthropogenic Alterations