Longitudinal Differences in Habitat Complexity and Fish Assemblage Structure of a Great Plains River

Abstract

ABSTRACT.-We investigated the spatial variation in the Kansas River (USA) fish assemblage to determine how fish community structure changes with habitat complexity in a large river. Fishes were collected at ten sites throughout the Kansas River for assessing assemblage structure in summer 2007. Aerial imagery indicated riparian land use within 200 m from the river edge was dominated by agriculture in the upper river reaches (.35%) and tended to increase in urban land use in the lower reaches (.58%). Instream habitat complexity (number of braided channels, islands) also decreased with increased urban area (,25%). Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that species that prefer high-velocity flows and sandy substrate (e.g., blue sucker Cycleptus elongatus and shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) were associated with the upper river reaches. Abundance of omnivorous and planktivorous fish species were also higher in the lower river. The presence of fluvial dependent and fluvial specialist species was associated with sites with higher water flows, more sand bars, and log jams. Our results suggest that conserving intolerant, native species in the Kansas River may require maintaining suitable habitat for these species and restoration of impacted areas of the river.

Distribution patterns of fish communities with respect to environmental gradients in Korean streams

“…Moreover, a rise in habitat diversity, as reflected in substrate composition (Goldstein and Meador, 2005;Needbling and Quist, 2010) and aquatic plant variety (Diddle et al, 1997), means that more fish species may be supported. Thus, the common observation that increasing habitat complexity changes the longitudinal distribution of fish species (Maturakis et al, 1987;Kouame´et al, 2008;Eitzmann and Paukert, 2010) is true of Korean streams.…”

Fish Community Response to Habitat Alteration: Impacts of Sand Dredging in the Kansas River

“…For all gear types, species preferring lotic environments (e.g., blue catfish, shovelnose sturgeon, and shoal chub ;Pflieger 1997;Eitzmann and Paukert 2010a) tended to be associated with high mean water column and near bed velocities. Whereas species preferring lentic environments or habitat generalists (e.g., white bass, walleye, and centrarchids; Pflieger 1997; Eitzmann and Paukert 2010a) tended to be associated with low mean water column and near bed velocities.…”

“…We intentionally selected control reaches within 10 km of dredging sites to minimize the effects of changes in channel form and longitudinal changes in fish fauna (Eitzmann and Paukert 2010a) that would have confounded the results. Additionally, hierarchical comparisons between the reach and local scale collections may be limited since the local collections did not include a seasonal aspect and sample locations were not identical.…”

“…urbanization and channel form). This design minimized the possibility of the results being confounded by longitudinal differences in the fish community (Eitzmann and Paukert 2010a). …”

“…Thus, even if dredged areas may be less suitable habitats for these species, the suitability of small-scale habitat patches may be negligible to highly mobile species, where the river serves as a corridor between suitable resource patches (sensu Junk et al 1989). However, Great Plains fishes tolerate a wide range of abiotic conditions, which fluctuate widely throughout the seasons (Bramblett et al 2005;Eitzmann and Paukert 2010a) and may be similar to the abiotic conditions resulting from dredging operations (Paukert et al 2008). Dredging has been linked with bed degradation and channel narrowing (Kondolf 1997;Rinaldi et al 2005) and may affect fish communities in ways similar to channelization (Brown et al 1998).…”