ABSTRACT: During the summers of 1982, 1983, and 1985, we assessed the effects of placer mining sedimentation on Arctic grayling, Thymallus arcticus, in the headwaters of Birch Creek, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. We compared differences between two streams (one that was undisturbed and one with mining activity upstream) near the confluence. Studies of caged fish demonstrated that, if grayling could not escape from streams carrying mining sediments, they would either die at high rates (sac fry) or suffer gill damage, starvation, and slowed maturation (age-O fingerlings and age-2 juveniles). Indirect effects of sedimentation, through loss of summer habitat for feeding and reproduction, may more severely affect grayling populations than the direct effects of sedimentation on the health and survival of individual fish. 相似文献
Humans have severely impacted riparian ecosystems through water diversions, impoundments, and consumptive uses. Effective
management of these important areas is becoming an increasingly high priority of land managers, particularly as municipal,
industrial, and recreational demands for water increase. We examined radial tree growth of four riparian tree species (Pinus jeffreyi, Populus trichocarpa, Betula occidentalis, and Pinus monophylla) along Bishop Creek, California, and developed models relating basal area increment (BAI) and relative basal area increment
(RBAI) to climatic and stream flow variables. Between years 1995–1999, univariate regression analysis with stream flow explained
29 to 61% of the variation in BAI and RBAI among all species except P. trichocarpa; growth by P. trichocarpa was not significantly related to stream flows over this period. Stepwise linear regression indicated that species responded
differently to climatic variables, and models based on these variables explained between 33 to 86% of variation in BAI and
RBAI during the decade of the 1990s. We examined branch growth of P. trichocarpa for sensitivity to differences in stream flow regimes and found that annual branch growth did not vary between a high- and
low-flow site, but that annual branch growth was significantly higher in wet years with greater stream flows. Our results
support the establishment of site-specific management goals by land managers that take into account all of the important tree
species present in riparian ecosystems and their differential responses to altered hydrologic condition. Instream flow requirements
for maintaining tree growth and vigor are only one of the species-specific responses that need to be evaluated, and these
assessments should attempt to separate experimentally stream-flow (managed) controls from climatic (unmanaged) controls on
growth. 相似文献