Meta-analysis of the effects of upstream land cover on stream recovery

Unpredictable or variable ecosystem recovery from disturbance presents a challenge to conservation, particularly as the scale of human disturbance continues to increase. Theory suggests land-cover and disturbance characteristics affect recovery, but individual studies of disturbance and recovery frequently struggle to uncover generalizable patterns because of high levels of site-specific variation. To understand how land-cover, disturbance type, and disturbance duration influence ecosystem recovery, we used studies documenting recovery of 50 streams to perform a global meta-analysis of stream recovery from disturbances that affect water quality (e.g., oil spill, fire, wastewater). We extracted upstream natural and urban land-cover percentages for each site and performed model selection and averaging to identify influences on recovery completeness. Most streams improved following the end of a disturbance (median 240% of disturbed condition) but did not recover fully to baseline predisturbance condition within the studied period (median study period 2 years; median recovery 60% of baseline). Scale of disturbance in time and space did not predict recovery, but sites with higher percentages of upstream natural land cover had less complete recovery relative to sites with more urban or agricultural cover, possibly due to higher baseline conditions in these streams. Our findings suggest impacts to systems with low anthropogenic stress may be more irreversible than impacts to already modified systems. We call for more long-term evaluations of ecosystem response to disturbance and the inclusion of regional references and predisturbance reference conditions for comparison. A more thorough understanding of the role of the surrounding landscape in shaping stream response to disturbance can help managers calibrate expectations for recovery and prioritize protection.     

河流营养物参照状态的建立方法研究进展

建立营养物参照状态是河流水污染控制的关键问题之一。系统论述了参照状态的各种内涵,重点分析了国外建立河流营养物参照状态的各种方法及优缺点,并分析了其在中国的适用性。最后,提出了河流营养物参照状态的进一步研究的重点。参照状态根据允许人类活动影响的程度可有多种含义:最小干扰状态、历史状态、最少干扰状态和最佳可达成状态。其中,最少干扰状态和最佳可达成状态在现实管理中具有一定程度的可操作性。参照河流百分比法是建立营养物参照状态的首选方法,但中国水环境污染形势严峻,参照点变得越来越少。当参照点不存在时,一般河流百分比法是参照河流百分比法的替代方法,然而一般河流百分比法和参照河流百分比法的匹配性关系并不完全保持一致。由于栖息地退化等因素对生物完整性的影响程度可能比营养物浓度更大,生物响应法在实际应用中是非常困难的。流域模型法虽然有众多优点,但是数据要求较高,并且常用流域模型的机理与中国有较大差距,在中国应用的结果具有较大的不确定性。综合考虑中国水环境污染现状和数据要求,以多元线性回归模型为代表的简易模型方法在中国应有最大的适用性。然而,环境因素与营养物质间的关系往往都是非线性的,今后应着重研究建立河流营养物参照状态的多元非线性回归模型方法。此外,还应加强季风河流营养物参照状态的季节性差异与年际差异研究,并在全国层面上根据自然因素划分适当规模的生态区,分区确定各生态区的河流营养物参照状态。     

Contribution of national bioassessment approaches for assessing ecological water security: an AUSRIVAS case study

River managers in Australia are managing in the face of extremes to provide security of water supply for people, production and the environment. Balancing the water requirements of people, environments and economies requires that water security is viewed holistically, not just in terms of the water available for human consumption. Common definitions of water security focus on the needs of both humans and ecosystems for purposes such as drinking, agriculture and industrial use, and to maintain ecological values. Information about achieving water security for the environment or ecological purposes can be a challenge to interpret because the watering requirements of key ecological processes or assets are not well understood, and the links between ecological and human values are often not obvious to water users. Yet the concepts surrounding river health are inherently linked to holistic concepts of water security. The measurement of aquatic biota provides a valuable tool for managers to understand progress toward achieving ecological water security objectives. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the reference condition approach to river health assessment, using the development of the Australian River Assessment System (AUSRIVAS) as a case study. We make the link between the biological assessment of river health and assessment of ecological water security, and suggest that such an approach provides a way of reporting that is relevant to the contribution made by ecosystems to water security. The reference condition approach, which is the condition representative of minimally disturbed sites organized by selected physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, is most important for assessing ecological water security objectives.     

湖泊营养物参照状态建立方法研究

建立生态分区内各类型湖泊营养物的参照状态是营养物基准制定过程中最为核心的内容之一。在系统分析和评价国外确定湖泊营养物参照状态的若干种方法,包括参照湖泊法、湖泊群体分布法、三分法、回归分析等几种统计学方法以及模型推断和古湖沼学重建方法后,文章根据总磷（total phosphorus,TP）、总氮（total nitrogen,TN）、叶绿素a（chlorophyll a,Chl-a）和塞氏透明度（Secci depth）等四项指标的历史监测数据,应用若干统计学方法建立了巢湖的营养物基准参照状态。通过互相之间的比较分析以及长江中下游湖区古湖沼学重建数据的验证,推荐采用湖泊群体分布法5％点位对应的值作为巢湖营养物基准的参照状态。因此,巢湖营养物参照状态阈值范围为总磷0．023～0．27mg·L^-1,总氮O．62～0．63mg·L^-1,叶绿素aO．65～0．67mg·m^-1,塞氏透明度0．65-0．72m。     

Understanding uncertainty in the effect of low-head dams on fishes of Great Lakes tributaries.

Small dams represent one of the most widespread human influences on riverscapes. Greater understanding of how these structures affect aquatic organisms is needed to ensure that decisions regarding their construction and removal strike an appropriate balance between components of human and ecosystem services. Within the basin of the Laurentian Great Lakes, the effects that in-stream barriers (dams) used to control the non-native, parasitic sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) on the diversity of non-target fishes is a significant concern for fishery managers. A previous study indicated that upstream changes in the species richness of non-target fishes observed in 24 streams with a sea lamprey barrier relative to paired reference streams (a measure of effect size) was variable across the basin. We examined the degree to which the variance in effect size could be attributed to imprecision in the field sampling protocol used to estimate effect sizes, differences in catchment-scale landscape attributes between barrier and reference streams within pairs, and differences in landscape attributes at different spatial scales among barrier streams. Simulation modeling and analyses of repeated field measurements made for a subset of streams demonstrated that a large variance in effect size is expected for the field sampling design and that estimates of effect size measured for individual barrier streams are imprecise. Regression models and multimodel inference methods based on Akaike's Information Criterion provided less support for hypotheses linking effect size to landscape attributes. Mean effect size, adjusted for the influences of landscape characteristics within and across stream pairs, provides the most reliable and least biased estimate of the effect of sea lamprey barriers on the richness of nontarget fish species. With the information currently available, landscape characteristics of catchments cannot be used to help decision makers anticipate effects sizes for candidate streams being considered for future barrier construction. Our findings will help fishery managers in the Laurentian Great Lakes make more informed decisions regarding the use and placement of sea lamprey barriers and achieve their objective of delivering an integrated pest management plan for sea lamprey control that is environmentally and economically sound and socially acceptable.     

Mapping legal authority for terrestrial conservation corridors along streams

Wildlife corridors aim to promote species’ persistence by connecting habitat patches across fragmented landscapes. Their implementation is limited by patterns of land ownership and complicated by differences in the jurisdictional and regulatory authorities under which lands are managed. Terrestrial corridor conservation requires coordination across jurisdictions and sectors subject to site-specific overlapping sources of legal authority. Mapping spatial patterns of legal authority concurrent with habitat condition can illustrate opportunities to build or leverage capacity for connectivity conservation. Streamside areas provide pragmatic opportunities to leverage existing policy mechanisms for riverine and terrestrial habitat connectivity across boundaries. Conservation planners and practitioners can make use of these opportunities by harmonizing actions for multiple conservation outcomes. We formulated an integrative, data-driven method for mapping multiple sources of legal authority weighted by capacity for coordinating terrestrial habitat conservation along streams. We generated a map of capacity to coordinate streamside corridor protections across a wildlife habitat gap to demonstrate this approach. We combined values representing coordination capacity and naturalness to generate an integrated legal-ecological resistance map for connectivity modeling. We then computed least-cost corridors across the integrated map, masking the terrestrial landscape to focus on streamside areas. Streamside least-cost corridors in the integrated, local-scale model diverged (∼25 km) from national-scale least-cost corridors based on naturalness. Spatial categories comparing legal- and naturalness-based resistance values by stream reach highlighted potential locations for building or leveraging existing capacity through spatial coordination of policy mechanisms or restoration actions. Agencies or nongovernmental organizations intending to restore or maintain habitat connectivity across fragmented landscapes can use this approach to inform spatial prioritization and build coordination capacity. Article impact statement: Combined mapping of legal authority and habitat condition reveals capacity to coordinate actions along streams for clean water and wildlife.     

Defining and measuring the impact of dynamic traits on interspecific interactions

Trait- and density-mediated indirect effects describe different pathways by which indirect interactions in food webs are propagated from one species to another, through changes in intermediate species. A series of articles in Ecology has progressively altered the original definitions of "trait-mediated" to the point where understanding is being impeded. The most recent of these articles are two meta-analyses that use "trait-mediated" to describe the demographic costs to a prey species of employing anti-predator defenses. These same articles introduce a companion term, "density-mediated interaction", apparently to describe direct and indirect interactions that only involve changes in population density due to consumption by predators. This new terminology has many disadvantages, including (1) using a general term for a relatively narrow group of processes; (2) using "mediated" in a manner inconsistent with existing terminology; (3) confusing the accepted definitions of different types of indirect effects; and (4) providing a highly incomplete measure of the impact of behavior on the predator-prey interaction. Solutions to these problems and the meaning of the meta-analyses are discussed.     

Sustainable development: the challenge of implementation

This paper focuses on efforts to produce an operational definition of the concept of ‘sustainable development’ as articulated by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). ‘Sustainability’ has become an increasingly significant environmental issue; the problems in articulating a workable concept will differ among nations and international organizations attempting to define the term. Additionally, the term encompasses the varied fields of ecology, philosophy, and economics; every discipline imparts its own bias. Various definitions are provided and the significance and difficulty of developing an operational definition of Sustainable development is discussed. For example, sustainable development has become a ‘needs'-oriented term, an entitlement that priority should be given to the needs of the world's poor. Some argue that living standards which go beyond the basic minimum are sustainable only if consumption standards everywhere have regard for long-term sustainability. Scientifically, sustainability involves replicability and regeneration through an unforeseeable future. When prices reflect social cost and there are no externalities, optimal choices will be made between present and future consumption. Much of the debate involving sustainability involves deep-rooted fears or phobias, e.g. resource depletion, ‘energy crises’ and ‘timber crises’.     

Flächenauswahl und Ökosystemares Monitoring in den Biosphärenreservaten Schorfheide-Chorin und Spreewald

For the two biosphere-reserves of Schorfheide-Chorin and Spreewald in the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany, we designed a concept for a monitoring program of ecosystems which is feasible and inexpensive, and whose methodical development is transferable to other large-scale protected areas. Beside the statistical analysis of hard GIS data, we systematically used additional criteria such as naturalness, scarcity and special management, a based on expert knowledge. Thus, after an inventory of the existing ecosystems, we selected the ecosystems to be monitored from the different ecosystem groups (i.e. woods and forests, fens, lakes, rivers, arable land and grasslands) based on the following four criteria:

1. dominance,
2. naturalness,
3. nation-wide scarcity and
4. special management.

We then combined the selected ecosystems with their relevant forms of landuse to so-called ecosystem-landuse-complexes, which reflect the natural conditions as well as the human impact in the biosphere reserves. This paper presents the selection of the ecosystem landuse complexes to be monitored. Thus, for both biosphere reserves, we obtained 32 ecosystem landuse complexes in woods and forests, 32 in fens, 53 in lakes, 7 in rivers, 23 in grasslands and 20 in arable land.     

Sex ratio manipulation in response to maternal condition in pigeons: evidence for pre-ovulatory follicle selection

A number of recent reports have documented offspring sex ratio biases in birds. However, to date the potential mechanisms that have been put forward to explain the proximate basis for these deviations are entirely speculative. Using a captive population of domestic pigeons (Columba livia domestica), I tested the hypothesis that mothers in relatively poor physical condition should overproduce daughters by manipulating maternal body condition around the time of egg laying by continuous egg removal and differing feeding regimes. During treatment, females were fed a controlled quantity of food. This, combined with the high energetic costs of repeated egg production caused a significant reduction in maternal body weight. In contrast, during control when food was available ad libitum, maternal body weight did not decline, despite repeated egg production. No significant deviation from parity was evident in the sex ratio of either the first or second eggs during control, whereas during treatment a significant female bias was evident in not only the first egg, but also in the second egg. The absence of single-egg clutches, the rarity of infertile eggs and the lack of laying delays between eggs strongly suggests that the mechanism of sex ratio adjustment in pigeons occurs prior to ovulation. The highly skewed sex-distribution within the two-egg clutches and the unexpectedly large amount of variation in the yolk weight of eggs produced during treatment (but not control) are consistent with the expectations of pre-ovulatory selective resorption of wrong sex ovarian follicles.     

Geoadditive regression modeling of stream biological condition

Indices of biotic integrity have become an established tool to quantify the condition of small non-tidal streams and their watersheds. To investigate the effects of watershed characteristics on stream biological condition, we present a new technique for regressing IBIs on watershed-specific explanatory variables. Since IBIs are typically evaluated on an ordinal scale, our method is based on the proportional odds model for ordinal outcomes. To avoid overfitting, we do not use classical maximum likelihood estimation but a component-wise functional gradient boosting approach. Because component-wise gradient boosting has an intrinsic mechanism for variable selection and model choice, determinants of biotic integrity can be identified. In addition, the method offers a relatively simple way to account for spatial correlation in ecological data. An analysis of the Maryland Biological Streams Survey shows that nonlinear effects of predictor variables on stream condition can be quantified while, in addition, accurate predictions of biological condition at unsurveyed locations are obtained.     

Effects of urbanization and urban stream restoration on the physical and biological structure of stream ecosystems

Streams, as low-lying points in the landscape, are strongly influenced by the stormwaters, pollutants, and warming that characterize catchment urbanization. River restoration projects are an increasingly popular method for mitigating urban insults. Despite the growing frequency and high expense of urban stream restoration projects, very few projects have been evaluated to determine whether they can successfully enhance habitat structure or support the stream biota characteristic of reference sites. We compared the physical and biological structure of four urban degraded, four urban restored, and four forested streams in the Piedmont region of North Carolina to quantify the ability of reach-scale stream restoration to restore physical and biological structure to urban streams and to examine the assumption that providing habitat is sufficient for biological recovery. To be successful at mitigating urban impacts, the habitat structure and biological communities found in restored streams should be more similar to forested reference sites than to their urban degraded counterparts. For every measured reach- and patch-scale attribute, we found that restored streams were indistinguishable from their degraded urban stream counterparts. Forested streams were shallower, had greater habitat complexity and median sediment size, and contained less-tolerant communities with higher sensitive taxa richness than streams in either urban category. Because heavy machinery is used to regrade and reconfigure restored channels, restored streams had less canopy cover than either forested or urban streams. Channel habitat complexity and watershed impervious surface cover (ISC) were the best predictors of sensitive taxa richness and biotic index at the reach and catchment scale, respectively. Macroinvertebrate communities in restored channels were compositionally similar to the communities in urban degraded channels, and both were dissimilar to communities in forested streams. The macroinvertebrate communities of both restored and urban degraded streams were correlated with environmental variables characteristic of degraded urban systems. Our study suggests that reach-scale restoration is not successfully mitigating for the factors causing physical and biological degradation.     

Can faecal glucocorticoid metabolites be used to monitor body condition in wild Upland geese Chloephaga picta leucoptera?

The measurement of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites is used as a non-invasive technique to study stress in animal populations. They have been used most widely in mammals, and mammalian studies have also treated issues such as sample stability and storage methods. In birds, faecal corticosterone metabolite (CM) assays have been validated for a small number of species, and adequate storage under field conditions has not been addressed explicitly in previous studies. Furthermore, while it is well-established that baseline plasma corticosterone levels in birds rise with declining body condition, no study so far investigated if this relationship is also reflected in faecal samples. We here present data of a field study in wild Upland geese Chloephaga picta leucoptera on the Falkland Islands, testing different storage methods and investigating the relationship of faecal CM concentrations to body condition and reproductive parameters. We found that faecal CM measures are significantly repeatable within individuals, higher in individuals with lower body condition in both male and female wild Upland geese and higher in later breeding females with smaller broods. These results suggest that measuring faecal CM values may be a valuable non-invasive tool to monitor the relative condition or health of individuals and populations, especially in areas where there still is intense hunting practice.     

Stream ecosystem response to limestone treatment in acid impacted watersheds of the Allegheny Plateau.

Restoration programs are expanding worldwide, but assessments of restoration effectiveness are rare. The objectives of our study were to assess current acid-precipitation remediation programs in streams of the Allegheny Plateau ecoregion of West Virginia (USA), identify specific attributes that could and could not be fully restored, and quantify temporal trends in ecosystem recovery. We sampled water chemistry, physical habitat, periphyton biomass, and benthic macroinvertebrate and fish community structure in three stream types: acidic (four streams), naturally circumneutral (eight streams), and acidic streams treated with limestone sand (eight streams). We observed no temporal trends in ecosystem recovery in treated streams despite sampling streams that ranged from 2 to 20 years since initial treatment. Our results indicated that the application of limestone sand to acidic streams was effective in fully recovering some characteristics, such as pH, alkalinity, Ca2+, Ca:H ratios, trout biomass and density, and trout reproductive success. However, recovery of many other characteristics was strongly dependent upon spatial proximity to treatment, and still others were never fully recovered. For example, limestone treatment did not restore dissolved aluminum concentrations, macroinvertebrate taxon richness, and total fish biomass to circumneutral reference conditions. Full recovery may not be occurring because treated streams continue to drain acidic watersheds and remain isolated in a network of acidic streams. We propose a revised stream restoration plan for the Allegheny Plateau that includes restoring stream ecosystems as connected networks rather than isolated reaches and recognizes that full recovery of acidified watersheds may not be possible.     

Conservation Genetics at the Species Boundary

Abstract: Conservation genetics has expanded its purview such that molecular techniques are now used routinely to prioritize populations for listing and protection and infer their historical relationships in addition to addressing more traditional questions of heterozygosity and inbreeding depression. Failure to specify whether molecular data are being used for diagnosis-related questions or for population viability questions, however, can lead either to misinterpretation of character data as adaptive information or to misinterpretation of frequency or distance data as diagnostic or historical information. Each of these misinterpretations will confound conservation programs. The character-based approach to delimiting phylogenetic species is both operationally and logically superior to "diagnostic" methods that involve distance- or frequency-based routines, which are unstable over time. Tree-based criteria for the diagnosis of conservation "units" are also inappropriate because they can depend on patterns inferred without reference to diagnostic characters. Intraspecific studies, conservation-related or otherwise, that adopt terminology and methods designed to infer nested hierarchic relationships confuse diagnosis with historical inferences by treating diagnoses as outcomes rather than as precursors to phylogeny reconstruction. A character-based diagnostic approach recognizes the analytical dichotomy between species hierarchies and population statistics and provides a framework for the understanding of each. No species concept, however, should be viewed as an absolute criterion for protecting populations, but as part of a framework from within which identification of protection and management goals can be achieved effectively and defensibly.     

Testing the field of dreams hypothesis: functional responses to urbanization and restoration in stream ecosystems

As catchments become increasingly urban, the streams that drain them become increasingly degraded. Urban streams are typically characterized by high-magnitude storm flows, homogeneous habitats, disconnected riparian zones, and elevated nitrogen concentrations. To reverse the degradation of urban water quality, watershed managers and regulators are increasingly turning to stream restoration approaches. By reshaping the channel and reconnecting the surface waters with their riparian zone, practitioners intend to enhance the natural nutrient retention capacity of the restored stream ecosystem. Despite the exponential growth in stream restoration projects and expenditures, there has been no evaluation to date of the efficacy of urban stream restoration projects in enhancing nitrogen retention or in altering the underlying ecosystem metabolism that controls instream nitrogen consumption. In this study, we compared ecosystem metabolism and nitrate uptake kinetics in four stream restoration projects within urban watersheds to ecosystem functions measured in four unrestored urban stream segments and four streams draining minimally impacted forested watersheds in central North Carolina, U.S.A. All 12 sites were surveyed in June through August of 2006 and again in January through March of 2007. We anticipated that urban streams would have enhanced rates of ecosystem metabolism and nitrate uptake relative to forested streams due to the increases in nutrient loads and temperature associated with urbanization, and we predicted that restored streams would have further enhanced rates for these ecosystem functions by virtue of their increased habitat heterogeneity and water residence times. Contrary to our predictions we found that stream metabolism did not differ between stream types in either season and that nitrate uptake kinetics were not different between stream types in the winter. During the summer, restored stream reaches had substantially higher rates of nitrate uptake than unrestored or forested stream reaches; however, we found that variation in stream temperature and canopy cover explained 80% of the variation across streams in nitrate uptake. Because the riparian trees are removed during the first stage of natural channel design projects, the restored streams in this study had significantly less canopy cover and higher summer temperatures than the urban and forested streams with which they were compared.     

The avoidance response of fathead minnows to chemical alarm cues: understanding the effects of donor gender and breeding condition

Summary. All animals are vulnerable to predation at some point in their lives and consequently prey organisms often develop effective risk assessment systems. For many aquatic species predation risk assessment occurs through the use of olfactory cues, including predator odours and alarm cues from damaged or disturbed conspecifics. When aquatic species encounter conspecific alarm cues they may respond, or not, based on specific information including cue concentration, health and size of the conspecific donor and potentially the gender and breeding condition of the donor. Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) fail to respond to the skin extracts of breeding male minnows. The purpose of the current study was to verify these early laboratory findings in the field as well as to further investigate the effect of female reproductive state and donor gender on the response of minnows to damage-release alarm cues. Our results indicate that male breeding condition has a significant effect on how minnows will respond to conspecific cues. Minnows showed avoidance of cues of female minnows and male minnows not in breeding condition, in comparison to cues of breeding male minnows and cues of male and female swordtails. Neither the gender of non-breeding minnows nor the reproductive state of female minnows influenced the avoidance of minnows to alarm cues.     

Diagnosing Units of Conservation Management

Species-oriented conservation programs attempt to analyze and maintain intra-specific variation in order to maximally preserve biological diversity. The "evolutionarily significant unit" has become an operational term for a group of organisms that should be the minimial unit for conservation management. No generally accepted definition for this term exists that would be the basis for the evaluation of these units in practical conservation situations. Currently, taxonomic decisions in species conservation are mostly based on the biological species concept. But the universal application of criteria of reproductive isolation or phenetic similarity to delimit conservation units is problematical. We favor a definition for evolutionarily significant units based on patterns of variation. In the theoretical framework of the phylogenetic species concept, conservation units are delimited by characters that diagnose clusters of individuals or populations to the exclusion of other such clusters. Characters are used for cladistic analysis to infer hypotheses of the phylogenetic relationships of individuals, and differentiated populations are diagnosed using population aggregation analysis. Characters can be based on genetic, morphological, ecological, or behavioral information, provided they are inferred to be heritable. The use of cladistics and population aggregation analysis has the potential to make the evaluation of evoluntionarily significant units objective and testable, an important consideration in politically controversial cases. Our cladistic approach is demonstrated by the evaluation of potential conservation units in the endangered tiger beetles Cicindela dorsalis and C. puritana .