Aquatic plants mediate ecological processes in aquatic habitats, specifically predator-prey (bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus Rafinesque)-macroinvertebrate) interactions. Macroinvertebrate colonization is directly and indirectly influenced by substrate heterogeneity, interstitial space, and surface complexity. Exotic invasive plant species, such as Hydrilla verticillata L.F. Royle, may alter the available structure in aquatic habitat by creating a shift to a homogeneous habitat, thus affecting the macroinvertebrate community. Since macroinvertebrates provide a food base for young phytophilic fishes, changes in their density and abundance may alter food webs. We investigated the hypothesis that macroinvertebrate community structure is influenced by differences in habitat heterogeneity by measuring difference between a heterogeneous native aquatic plant bed, homogenous hydrilla plant bed, and habitat with no plants. Studies were conducted in the field (pond) and the experimental treatments were: (1) no plants, (2) monotypic bed of hydrilla, and (3) diverse native plants. Aquatic plants, regardless of species, supported greater macroinvertebrate abundance, richness, and biomass. Macroinvertebrate abundance, richness, and biomass in a hydrilla-dominated habitat did not differ significantly from a diverse plant habitat, except for richness in October. Indicator taxa did differ significantly between respective treatments, suggesting a change in species composition. However, no significant effect of fish predation on macroinvertebrate populations and/or community structure was documented. The data suggest that a shift from a natural mosaic of vegetated habitat to a highly complex monotypic habitat (e.g., exotic hydrilla) may reduce spatial heterogeneity important to structuring a macroinvertebrate assemblage.

Restoration monitoring is generally perceived as costly and time consuming, given the assumptions of successfully restoring ecological functions and services of a particular ecosystem or habitat. Opportunities exist for remote sensing to bolster the restoration science associated with a wide variety of injured resources, including resources affected by fire, hydropower operations, chemical releases, and oil spills, among others. In the last decade, the role of remote sensing to support restoration monitoring has increased, in part due to the advent of high-resolution satellite sensors as well as other sensor technology, such as lidar. Restoration practitioners in federal agencies require monitoring standards to assess restoration performance of injured resources. This review attempts to address a technical need and provides an introductory overview of spatial data and restoration metric considerations, as well as an in-depth review of optical (e.g., spaceborne, airborne, unmanned aerial vehicles) and active (e.g., radar, lidar) sensors and examples of restoration metrics that can be measured with remotely sensed data (e.g., land cover, species or habitat type, change detection, quality, degradation, diversity, and pressures or threats). To that end, the present article helps restoration practitioners assemble information not only about essential restoration metrics but also about the evolving technological approaches that can be used to best assess them. Given the need for monitoring standards to assess restoration success of injured resources, a universal monitoring framework should include a range of remote sensing options with which to measure common restoration metrics. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:614-630. Published 2016. This article is a US Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

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INTRODUCTION:The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) serves as the Nation's environmental engineer. Within this capacity, the USACE designs, plans, oversees, and manages multiple civil works and military construction efforts. The advancement of sustainable design and development practices that beneficially integrate engineering and ecology is a goal of USACE projects (https://ewn.el.erdc.dren.mil/About.html). Once completed, USACE projects are often in service for many decades; therefore, USACE planners must consider long-term changes in the environmental setting of each project (Cann 2010). Wildlife distributions change over time in response to the gain and loss of habitat, as well as other natural processes. Regulatory actions, such as the designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act, can allow for habitat to be preserved promoting source populations that can expand their distribution if conditions are favorable. The listing or de-listing of Threatened and Endangered Species can have direct impacts on USACE projects coming to fruition after years of planning. In an effort to predict potential impacts to USACE restoration sites from species range shifts either into or out of an area, this technical note provides a methodological framework and promotes a model design that has the capacity to inform future decision making. PURPOSE:This effort will develop a working model that can serve as a tool to predict range shifts of threatened, endangered and at-risk species (TER-S), as environmental conditions are altered by climate change (CC). This tool will assist the USACE with future planning and preparation for restoration projects that incorporate management for TER-S already present within the North Atlantic Division (NAD). Changes in climate have an impact on a wide variety of components within natural environments. Temperature and precipitation changes impact vegetation phenology that may disrupt ecosystems in a way that changes TER-S habitats. With the wide breadth of potential impacts from CC, earlier efforts have focused on developing tools for specific circumstances and/or impacts. However, as each of these factors change independently to impact other components, a more comprehensive methodology is needed to conduct a robust assessment of the impacts of CC across a variety of situations and locations.Models that display where TER-S are currently located, and to what extent these range shifts will occur, will be of great importance towards future project planning and resource management. Britzke et al. (2014) outlines existing research products for physical upland climate drivers (e.g., precipitation, temperature, land classification) that are suitable for delineating biome shift vulnerability. For example, some TER-S are strongly associated with specific vegetation communities and forecasting vegetation dynamics can be causally linked to TER-S ranges. Typically, these approaches used species distribution and regression models to statistically 2 understand changes to spatial ranges given a ...

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