Instream wood promotes habitat heterogeneity through its influence on flow hydraulics and channel geomorphology. Within the Columbia River Basin, USA, wood is vital for the creation and maintenance of habitat for threatened salmonids. However, our understanding of the relative roles of the climatic, geomorphic, and ecological processes that source wood to streams is limited, making it difficult to identify baseline predictions of instream wood and create targets for stream restoration. Here, we investigate how instream wood frequency and volume differ between seven sub‐basins of the interior Columbia River Basin and what processes shape these differences within these sub‐basins. We collected data on wood volume and frequency, discharge and stream power, and riparian and watershed forest structure for use in modelling wood volume and frequency. Using random forest models, we found that mean annual precipitation, riparian tree cover, and the individual watershed were the most important predictors of wood volume and frequency. Within sub‐basins, we used linear models, finding that some basins had unique predictors of wood. Discharge, watershed area, or precipitation often combined with forest cover, riparian conifer, and/or large tree cover in models of instream large wood volume and frequency. In many sub‐basins, models showed at least one hydrologic variable, indicative of transport competence and one ecological variable, indicative of the reach or upstream watershed's capability to grow measurable instream wood. We conclude that basin‐specific models yield important insights into the hydrologic and ecological processes that influence wood loads, creating tractable hypotheses for building predictive models of instream wood. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Instream wood promotes habitat heterogeneity through its influence on flow hydraulics and channel geomorphology. Within the Columbia River Basin, USA, wood is vital for the creation and maintenance of habitat for threatened salmonids. However, our understanding of the relative roles of the climatic, geomorphic, and ecological processes that source wood to streams is limited, making it difficult to identify baseline predictions of instream wood and create targets for stream restoration. Here, we investigate how instream wood frequency and volume differ between seven sub-basins of the interior Columbia River Basin and what processes shape these differences within these sub-basins. We collected data on wood volume and frequency, discharge and stream power, and riparian and watershed forest structure for use in modelling wood volume and frequency. Using random forest models, we found that mean annual precipitation, riparian tree cover, and the individual watershed were the most important predictors of wood volume and frequency. Within sub-basins, we used linear models, finding that some basins had unique predictors of wood. Discharge, watershed area, or precipitation often combined with forest cover, riparian conifer, and/or large tree cover in models of instream large wood volume and frequency. In many subbasins, models showed at least one hydrologic variable, indicative of transport competence and one ecological variable, indicative of the reach or upstream watershed's capability to grow measurable instream wood. We conclude that basin-specific models yield important insights into the hydrologic and ecological processes that influence wood loads, creating tractable hypotheses for building predictive models of instream wood.

The bryozoan Melicerita chathamensis Uttley and Bullivant, 1972 produces colonies that exhibit visible growth segments defined by narrow growth checks. If these growth checks are annual, then colony age, and seawater variations among seasons and years can be quantified. The purpose of the present study was to use stable isotope profiling to evaluate whether the segments between growth checks represent annual temperature cycles in this species. We applied three independent methods to determine colony age of six colonies from 168 m depth on the Snares Platform located south of New Zealand. First, each colony was X-rayed to determine the location of the growth checks based on skeletal density. Second, branch width was measured for each zooid generation along the growth axis to locate the growth checks. Third, we measured stable C and O isotope values along the colony axis. Branch width patterns corresponded broadly with X-ray patterns, suggesting colony ages of 1.5-7.5 yrs (mean: 4.0 yrs). δ 18 O profiles suggested colony ages of 4.0-6.5 yrs (mean: 5.3 yrs). This species does precipitate its skeleton in isotopic equilibrium with seawater, such that annual growth checks correlate with cooler winter temperatures. A conceptual model is proposed for the annual growth cycle in this species. In the most complete colony, the δ 18 O-derived temperatures correlated with inter-annual variations related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation Index. Marine skeletal carbonate can be a useful and persistent biogeochemical proxy of seawater conditions, especially temperature, but such proxies are only useful when well calibrated temporally. In taxa like the bryozoans, where growth rate is poorly known and can vary greatly (Smith 2014), one approach-used in polar faunashas been to rely on growth checks. Growth checks are areas of thickened skeleton that are thought to indicate slow-to-no growth during food-scarce Antarctic winter (Brey et al. 1999, Smith 2007). However, there has not been a study that validates the

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The upper extent of a channel is a transition zone from the hillslope to the beginning of the stream channel. Accurately and consistently identifying the upper extent of a channel in the field and locating where hillslope processes transition to stream-channel processes can be a difficult task. Physical characteristics located at the beginning of a channel (i.e., channel head), including geomorphic, sediment, and vegetation indicators, can vary significantly across different landscapes in the United States. Remote tools are useful for examining the upper extent of channels, but these re-mote tools have limitations for identifying the beginning of channels. Even as the resolution of remote data continues to increase, field observations are necessary to validate the remote data on the ground and to accurately and consistently identify and locate the transition from the hillslope to the stream channel. Use of a combination of remote and field evidence is likely the most successful strategy for identifying channel heads. This report presents a case study that demonstrates how a weight-of-evidence approach can combine field and remote evidence to locate the different parts of the transition and ultimately to identify the channel-head location.