1. Recent increases in fire frequency in North America have focused interest on potential effects on adjacent ecosystems, including streams. Headwaters could be particularly affected because of their high connectivity to riparian and downstream aquatic ecosystems through aquatic invertebrate drift and emergence. 2. Headwater streams from replicated burned and control catchments were sampled in 2 years following an intense forest fire in northeastern Washington (U.S.A.). We compared differences in benthic, drift and emergent macroinvertebrate density, biomass and community composition between five burned and five unburned catchments (14-135 ha). 3. There were significantly higher macroinvertebrate densities in burned than control sites for all sample types. Macroinvertebrate biomass was greater at burned sites only from emergence samples; in benthic and drift samples there was no significant difference between burn and control sites. 4. For all sample types, diversity was lower in the burned catchments, and the macroinvertebrate community was dominated by chironomid midges. 5. Compared to the effects of fire in less disturbed ecosystems, this study illustrated that forest fire in a managed forest may have greater effects on headwater macroinvertebrate communities, influencing prey flow to adjacent terrestrial and downstream aquatic habitats for at least the first 2 years post-fire.

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Native fishes continue to decline in abundance and distribution. One common practice to ensure native fish persistence has been to introduce fish into new habitats. Though these introductions reduce the risk of extinction, often the introduced populations are not considered in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing status in the same manner as extant populations. One instance where they were considered was when Least Chub Iotichthys phlegethontis were introduced into 23 locations within the Bonneville Basin between 2005 and 2013. In 2014, 10 of these populations were considered successful and were evaluated with the six remaining extant populations by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In this instance, Least Chub were removed from the candidate list in part due to these introduced populations, which increased the resiliency, redundancy, and representation for this species to persist now and into the foreseeable future. The creation of introduced fish populations is a conservation practice that needs to be considered as a potential tool for fisheries managers, not only to ensure persistence, but also to preclude the need for federal listing under ESA.