Prediction of stream fish assemblages from land use characteristics: implications for cost-effective design of monitoring programmes |
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Authors: | Esben Astrup Kristensen Annette Baattrup-Pedersen Hans Estrup Andersen |
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Institution: | (1) University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA;(2) Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Monitoring and Non-Tidal Assessment Division, 580 Taylor Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401, USA |
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Abstract: | Increasing human impact on stream ecosystems has resulted in a growing need for tools helping managers to develop conservations
strategies, and environmental monitoring is crucial for this development. This paper describes the development of models predicting
the presence of fish assemblages in lowland streams using solely cost-effective GIS-derived land use variables. Three hundred
thirty-five stream sites were separated into two groups based on size. Within each group, fish abundance data and cluster
analysis were used to determine the composition of fish assemblages. The occurrence of assemblages was predicted using a dataset
containing land use variables at three spatial scales (50 m riparian corridor, 500 m riparian corridor and the entire catchment)
supplemented by a dataset on in-stream variables. The overall classification success varied between 66.1–81.1% and was only
marginally better when using in-stream variables than when applying only GIS variables. Also, the prediction power of a model
combining GIS and in-stream variables was only slightly better than prediction based solely on GIS variables. The possibility
of obtaining precise predictions without using costly in-stream variables offers great potential in the design of monitoring
programmes as the distribution of monitoring sites along a gradient in ecological quality can be done at a low cost. |
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