RESEARCH ARTICLE
Intra-reach Headwater Fish Assemblage Structure
James E. McKenna*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 10
First Page: 1
Last Page: 12
Publisher Id: TOECOLJ-10-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874213001710010001
Article History:
Received Date: 06/10/2016Revision Received Date: 02/12/2016
Acceptance Date: 10/12/2016
Electronic publication date: 25/01/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Large-scale conservation efforts can take advantage of modern large databases and regional modeling and assessment methods. However, these broad-scale efforts often assume uniform average habitat conditions and/or species assemblages within stream reaches.
Objective:
I examined fish species assemblage structure within two forested headwater stream reaches of the Great Lakes drainage to evaluate the validity of within stream uniformity.
Results:
Sample assemblages within stream reaches were not distinct, except for where habitat changed sharply from forest to wetland.
Conclusion:
The results support the general assumption that fish assemblages are uniform within stream reaches, for the purposes of coarse scale analyses, but more research is needed to test the consistency of these finding across all headwater streams of a watershed or region.