Application of OEPA-Produced Biotic Indices and Physical Stream Measurements to Assess Freshwater Mussel (Unionidae) Habitat in the Upper Mahoning River, Ohio

Begley, Matthew T.; Krebs, Robert A.

doi:10.1656/045.024.0101

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 57 publications

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“…According to the River Continuum Concept, the longitudinal (upstream-downstream) biodiversity pattern forms in response to continuous changes in environmental conditions (RCC; Ward, 1989;Ward, 1998;Vannote et al, 1980). The mid-peak distribution of species richness in various aquatic taxa along rivers has been commonly reported, such as in aquatic macroinvertebrates (Abdelsalam, 2012), mussels (Begley & Krebs, 2017), and fish (Zhang et al, 2020). In addition, the species richness of riparian organisms, when driven by particular environmental factors along mountainous rivers, can monotonically increase (Berrahou et al, 2001) or present U-shaped distributions (Zhang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal multidiversity pattern and the environmental drivers of riparian bird communities along submontane rivers of Changbai Mountains, China

Gong

Wang

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Riparian zones are biodiversity hotspots in montane ecosystems and are of critical conservation concern. However, studies on longitudinal diversity patterns and environmental drivers have been restricted to aquatic fauna, while the animals that rely on both river and riparian resources have been of much less concern. Here, we examined the multifaceted diversity distribution of riparian birds along longitudinal gradients and analyzed the importance of environmental factors in shaping these patterns in the Changbai Mountains. Hump‐shaped relationships between elevation and taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity, as well as with the conservation value index, were evident along each of the classic submontane rivers. Forest cover, vegetation height variation, and land cover patches positively affected the taxonomic diversity indices. In addition to the species richness, fluvial geomorphology variables (river sinuosity and gravel bar) were significantly related to the phylogenetic diversity. However, there was no statistical evidence for a relationship between functional diversity and the environmental variables examined. This study emphasized the necessity of including multiple diversity measures beyond taxonomic diversity and demonstrated the importance of both terrestrial and aquatic components in shaping the multifaceted biodiversity pattern of riparian organisms living in riparian zones. The results suggested that conservation priority should be given to both rivers and banks in the middle reaches and that riparian birds could be good candidate indicators of environmental change in the submontane river‐forest ecotone.

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