Distribution and Conservation Standing of West Virginia Crayfishes

Loughman, Zachary J.; Welsh, Stuart A.

doi:10.1656/058.009.s304

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Throughout the New River basin of West Virginia, C. cf. sciotensis occupies the large tertiary burrowing Cambarus niche without direct intergenera competition (Loughman & Welsh 2010). In the Kanawha River system immediately downstream of Kanawha Falls, within the study region, C. cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Throughout the Greater New/ Kanawha system in all larger ordered streams, at least one tertiary burrowing Cambarus and one Orconectes species occur sympatrically (Jezerinac et al, 1995;Loughman & Welsh, 2010). In the Upper Kanawha, this assemblage is composed of C. robustus and O. sanbornii.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In effect, this result could be interpreted as both species requiring the same ecological requirements. While true to an extent, both species utilize different stream macrohabitats (Loughman & Welsh, 2010;Loughman & Simon, 2011), and have different life history strategies (Loughman & Simon, 2011). Understanding the interaction among modeling results and crayfish ecological function will lead to the elucidation of key interspecific habitat parameters dictating the creation of native crayfish assemblages, something that currently is poorly understood for North American crayfish.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Crayfish are important components of aquatic ecosystems in the eastern United States, where anthropogenic changes to aquatic habitat and water quality, as well as introduced species, are often associated with crayfish population declines (Loughman & Welsh, 2010). In the Appalachian region of the eastern United States, anthropogenic changes to stream habitat and water quality are associated with cumulative effects of land use practices, such as natural resource extraction and urbanization (Palmer et al, 2010;Merriam et al, 2011;Hopkins et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1). One species, O. virilis, is introduced within the drainage (Loughman & Welsh, 2010). Our aim was to examine the association of crayfish presence/absence with physical habitat, percent canopy cover, and stream water quality within heavily mined watersheds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Physical habitat and water quality correlates of crayfish distributions in a mined watershed

Welsh

Loughman

2014

Hydrobiologia

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In mined watersheds, water quality alters aquatic faunas, but few studies have focused on associations between stream habitat and crayfish distributions. We examined associations of water quality and physical habitat quality on presence/ absence of six crayfish species in the upper Kanawha River drainage of southern West Virginia, USA, a region with a long history of surface and mountaintop removal mining of coal. Data supported an association of physical habitat quality with the presence of four species (Cambarus carinirostris, Cambarus robustus, Cambarus cf. sciotensis, and Orconectes sanbornii). Cambarus bartonii cavatus and the non-native Orconectes virilis were associated with lower quality physical habitat than that of the other four species. Relative to other species, C. b. cavatus was associated with the lowest conductivity values, whereas O. virilis was associated with the highest conductivity values. Secondary and tertiary burrowers were generally associated with relatively high-quality physical habitat. However, C. b. cavatus, a crayfish known to burrow extensively in headwater streams, was associated with the lowest quality physical habitat. Physical habitat quality was generally supported over stream conductivity as a variable influencing crayfish distributions. Our data demonstrate the importance of stream habitat quality when assessing crayfish assemblages within mined watersheds.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%