In the summer of 1998 and 1999, watersheds in western Oregon were randomly sampled for stream habitat conditions. Sites were selected using a random tessellation stratified design. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Aquatic Inventories methods were used to quantify indicators of sediment supply and quality, riparian forest connectivity and health, habitat structure, in-stream complexity, an...

Habitat suitability and the distinct mobility of species depict fundamental keys for explaining and understanding the distribution of river fishes. In recent years, comprehensive data on river hydromorphology has been mapped at spatial scales down to 100 m, potentially serving high resolution species-habitat models, e.g., for fish. However, the relative importance of specific hydromorphological...

Sanders, Kathryn E. M.S., Purdue University, May 2012. Relative Importance of Water Quality and Habitat to Fish Communities in Streams Influenced by Agricultural Land Use in the Cedar Creek Watershed, Indiana. Major Professor: Robert B. Gillespie. Agricultural land use has been shown to negatively impact fish communities in headwater streams that also serve as agricultural drainage ditches. The...

A two-dimensional hydraulic model River2D was used to investigate the significance of flow complexity on habitat preferences of brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis) in the high-gradient Staunton River in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. Two 100-m reaches were modeled where detailed brook trout surveys 10–30-m resolution have been conducted annually since 1997. Spatial hydraulic complexity metr...

Introduction The objective of this bulletin is to describe a stream habitat inventory procedure that will classify and quantify fish habitat in terms of channel features. The procedure is based on information gathered in gravel and boulder-bed streams in the western Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington and in the Kla-math Mountains of California (Bisson et al., 1981; Sullivan, 1986, Grant...

—Stream carrying capacity for anadromous salmonids that rear to the smolting stage in freshwater can be predicted from a sequence of cause-response functions that describe fish preferences for macro-habitat features. The channel unit (e.g., pool, glide, riffle) is a useful stratum for quantifying rearing capacity for salmonids, and is a hydrologically meaningful unit for predicting the response...

Many species of wildlife depend on riparian habitats for various life-history functions (e.g., breeding, foraging, overwintering). Although this unique habitat is critical for many species, delineations of riparian zones and buffers for various taxa are lacking. Typically when buffer zones are determined to mitigate edge effects, they are based on criteria that protect aquatic resources alone a...

Watershed land use in suburban areas can affect stream biota through degradation of instream habitat, water quality, and riparian vegetation. By monitoring stream biotic communities in various geographic regions, we can better understand and conserve our watershed ecosystems. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between watershed land use and the integrity of benthic inve...

Habitat characterisation is a pivotal step of any animal ecology study. The choice of variables used to describe habitats is crucial and need to be relevant to the ecology and behaviour of the species, in order to reflect biologically meaningful distribution patterns. In many species, acoustic communication is critical to individuals' interactions, and it is expected that ambient acoustic condi...

~ Riparian vegetation increases stream channel complexity and directly contributes to aquatic habitat through inputs of logs and branches. In turn, the provision of complex habitat has a major influence on aquatic biodiversity. ~ Logs and branches can enhance stream stability, regulate sediment transport and exert significant control on channel complexity in bedrock rivers and channel geomorpho...