Quantifying relationships between land‐use gradients and structural and functional indicators of stream ecological integrity

Clapcott, Joanne E.; Collier, Kevin J.; Death, Russell G.; Goodwin, Eric; Harding, Jon S.; Kelly, David; Leathwick, John R.; Young, Roger G.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2427.2011.02696.x

Cited by 153 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Kail et al (2012) found thresholds of 16.3 % urban landuse in german catchments limiting ecological quality at the sites, Collier et al (2013) linked less than 20 % natural vegetation cover to changes in ecosystems functions and Death and Collier (2010) related the amount of catchment natural vegetation to water quality or biodiversity. However, in terms of biotic influences, land use can alter community composition and biodiversity patterns (Allan 2004;Harding et al 1998) and functional indices (Clapcott et al 2012;Collier et al 2013), but despite altering composition, this may not influence other environmental linkages including those between productivity, disturbance and diversity (Tonkin and Death 2012).…”

Section: Discussion Environmental Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

Jähnig

Shah

et al. 2015

Environ Earth Sci

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Chinese rivers are both highly biodiverse and highly under pressure, hence an urgent need exists to understand ecological drivers and disentangle different scales of stressors to support water management. Our aims were to (1) determine the most influential variables for benthic invertebrate occurrence, (2) compare results related to communities as opposed to metrics and (3) examine the role of spatial scales with relevance to management. Benthic invertebrate sampling was performed at 37 sites in selected tributaries of the middle reaches of the Yangtze, covering an environmental gradient with a focus on organic pollution (stratified sampling design). Ten metrics commonly used in biomonitoring were derived and analysed in parallel to assemblage data. Environmental variables covered 74 parameters from three different spatial scales, namely local, reach and catchment scale. We ran a CCA with each of the three subsets to find out the significant determining/explanatory variables, followed by pCCA and pRDA (for metric data) with these variables with forward selection to determine single variables important for each subset; we further used variation portioning for benthic invertebrate data. A high percentage of overall variability (70 %) of the assemblage structure was explained, with catchment-and local-scale variables being almost equally important. Small-scale variables tended to be more important than large-scale variables for the metric-based approach but not for the assemblage approach. Our results emphasise the need for spatially explicit regional studies in freshwater systems and suggest testing multi-metric assessment approaches to tackle water management and environmental health questions in China.

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Section: Discussion Environmental Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

Jähnig

Shah

et al. 2015

Environ Earth Sci

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“…We analysed metrics calculated using a range of regional and national datasets as described in Clapcott et al (2012). Metrics included water quality metrics (water visual clarity -Clarity, nitrate-N and nitrite-N concentration -NOx), macroinvertebrate metrics (Macroinvertebrate Community Index -MCI (average sensitivity score per taxon (Stark, 1985)), number of species producing once in a life cycle -Cycle), fish metrics (index of biological integrity -F-IBI (Joy and Death, 2004), percent of native fish species -Native) and ecosystem process metrics (ecosystem respiration -ER, gross primary production -GPP, cellulose decomposition potential -Cotton, δ 15 N of primary consumers -D15N).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…measures that have been and can be widely adopted and communicated). We used a boosted regression tree (BRT) approach (Elith et al, 2008), to model the response of candidate metrics to land use and environmental gradients at a national scale as described in Clapcott et al (2011). A two-step model was developed where in the first step we examined the metric response to three land-use gradients: percentage of native vegetation cover remaining (VegR), percentage of impervious cover (IC), and the log-transformed predicted stream N concentration (LogN; based on landuse intensity whereby estimated nitrogen load is standardised by stream flow (Woods et al, 2006)).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Model validation showed that this two-step approach had improved predictive accuracy compared to a simple "all-in" model, we suspect due to the fixed partitioning of variance to land-use effects. To predict "expected" reference values, first we calculated the average metric value at sites with >95% native vegetation cover and 0% urban cover (N ranged from 5−40 and represented approximately 10% of our training data with good geographical representation, Clapcott et al, 2011). We then used the fitted functions from the second step to estimate how these reference values will vary spatially on a national scale due to environmental variability in the absence of land-use effects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in a parallel investigation of fish, macroinvertebrates and diatom assemblages, Carlisle et al (2008) showed how a single group evaluation indicated impaired conditions on average much less often than when several groups were used. Similarly, a recent New Zealand study illustrated how different water quality, macroinvertebrate and fish indicators varied in their responses to land-use stressors (Clapcott et al, 2012). Comparable studies suggest that the assessment of multiple groups of organisms has the potential to provide a more robust evaluation of ecological integrity than the assessment of a single group (Brown et al, 2009;Waite, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A multimetric approach for predicting the ecological integrity of New Zealand streams

Clapcott

Goodwin

Young

et al. 2014

Knowl. Managt. Aquatic Ecosyst.

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Integrating multiple measures of stream health into a combined metric can provide a holistic assessment of the ecological integrity of a stream. The aim of this study was to develop a multimetric index (MMI) of stream integrity based on predictive modelling of national data sets of water quality, macroinvertebrates, fish and ecosystem process metrics. We used a boosted regression tree approach to calculate an observed/expected score for each metric prior to combining metrics in a MMI based on data availability and the strength of predictive models. The resulting MMI provides a geographically meaningful prediction of the ecological integrity of rivers in New Zealand, but identifies limitations in data and approach, providing focus for ongoing research. RÉSUMÉUne approche multimétrique pour prédire l'intégrité écologique des cours d'eau en Nouvelle-Zélande Mots-clés :indice multimétrique, intégrité écologique, santé des cours d'eau, arbres de décision stimulés, NouvelleZélande L'intégration de plusieurs mesures de la santé des cours d'eau dans une métrique combinée peut fournir une évaluation globale de l'intégrité écologique d'un cours d'eau. Le but de cette étude était de développer un indice multimétrique (MMI) de l'intégrité des rivières basé sur la modélisation prédictive des ensembles de données nationales de métrologie de la qualité de l'eau, des macro-invertébrés, des poissons et des processus de l'écosystème. Nous avons utilisé une approche par l'arbre de décision stimulé pour calculer un score observé / prévu pour chaque métrique avant de combiner les paramètres dans une MMI basée sur la disponibilité des données et la force de modèles prédictifs. Le MMI résultant fournit une prédiction géographique significative de l'intégrité écologique des rivières en Nouvelle-Zélande, mais identifie les limites des données et de l'approche, et donne une orientation à la recherche en cours.

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Approaches to the selection of a network of freshwater ecosystems within New Zealand for conservation

West¹,

Leathwick²,

Dean‐Speirs³

2019

Aquatic Conservation

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1. Although the freshwater environments of New Zealand once comprised an extensive interconnected network of rivers, lakes, and wetlands, their extent, condition, and connectivity have been reduced since human settlement, with consequent impacts on ecosystem functioning and the species that reside within them. An imbalance in the protection of freshwater ecosystems, with significant underrepresentation of lowland freshwater ecosystems, makes these the most threatened ecosystems in New Zealand.2. Recent policy initiatives are attempting to take a whole-catchment view, i.e. 'from the mountains to the sea'. There is also an increased focus on the restoration of vulnerable water bodies that still support moderate values, in preference to previous long-term restoration programmes for the most degraded freshwater sites. The outcomes of these programmes have been less certain, with opportunities lost for systems that are declining in condition but have not yet reached the threshold of degradation for investment.3. This work demonstrates the gains that can be made through the use of spatial conservation prioritization software to identify priority catchments for freshwater restoration, emphasizing the representation of a full range of ecosystems and species, while also taking account of longitudinal-connectivity constraints within catchments.4. Third-order subcatchments were the most suitable scale for this prioritization, to capture the most important components within the largest river catchments. Populations of important native fish populations and the locations of major terrestrial conservation projects were also considered when assessing priorities; iteratively chosen weightings were applied to control the balance of representation across these different features.5. Consideration was also given to existing patterns of protection, in order to assess the biodiversity representation within areas currently protected and to identify sites that would provide maximum additional benefits if restored or protected.6. The resulting subcatchment prioritizations have contributed strongly to regional collaborative restoration processes.

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Quantifying relationships between land‐use gradients and structural and functional indicators of stream ecological integrity

Cited by 153 publications

References 69 publications

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

A multimetric approach for predicting the ecological integrity of New Zealand streams

Approaches to the selection of a network of freshwater ecosystems within New Zealand for conservation

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