Co-varying impacts of land use and non-native brown trout on fish communities in small streams
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Kirk, Mark A.
Wissinger, Scott A.
Goeller, Brandon C.
Rieck, Leslie O.
Date Issued
January 10, 2017
Abstract
1. Evaluating the biological integrity of stream ecosystems requires a clear understanding of biological responses to anthropogenic stressors. Co-variation of stressors with natural landscape gradients has been shown to complicate the ability of biological assessments to detect community-level responses to anthropogenic stressors. Similarly, the co-varying occurrence of non-native species would also likely confound the ability of biological assessments to accurately determine biological integrity, although these relationships have been less studied.
2. We compared fish communities in 99 wadeable tributaries (with catchments of 10–35 km2) of the upper Allegheny River watershed, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., to disentangle the effects of human-induced stressors associated with agricultural development, the presence of non-native brown trout (Salmotrutta) and background variation in community composition associated with natural landscape features.
3. Multivariate analyses using both taxonomic and trait-based data revealed that environmental gradients sorted fish species into different thermal communities (coolwater versus warmwater).Layered over the shift in thermal communities was the presence of large-bodied (piscivorous) browntrout, which along with agricultural land use, was a consistent determinant of community diversity and presence–absence of nine common native species. Small-bodied taxa (minnows, darters) were the most responsive to the presence of these large non-native predators.
4. Our results highlight how the presence of a non-native species can modify the interactions between natural and anthropogenic stressor gradients and therefore confound the ability to detect signals between land use stressors and local stream community composition. The complicated interaction between brown trout and other anthropogenic stressors documented herein is likely to be a widespread phenomenon given the global introductions of many salmonid species into systems with varying anthropogenic stressor gradients. Overall, understanding how non-native species influence stream community composition should lead to biological assessments with greater capabilities for detecting non-native effects on biological integrity relative to the more frequently evaluated land use stressors.
Journal
Freshwater Biology
Department
Environmental Science / Studies
Citation
Kirk, M.A., Wissinger, S.A., Goeller, B.C., and Rieck, L.O. (2017). Co-varying impacts of land use and non-native brown trout on fish communities in small streams. Freshwater Biology 62(3): 600-614. doi: 10.1111/fwb.12889
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.1111/fwb.12889
ISSN
0046-5070
1365-2427
Rights
This item is copyright restricted. Please contact the author or publisher for access.
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