2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
5/21/2018 | 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM | INTERACTIONS AMONG HABITAT COMPLEXITY, MACROINVERTEBRATES, AND TROPHIC DYNAMICS DOWNSTREAM OF A LARGE-RIVER DAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD WEB STABILITY | 420 A
INTERACTIONS AMONG HABITAT COMPLEXITY, MACROINVERTEBRATES, AND TROPHIC DYNAMICS DOWNSTREAM OF A LARGE-RIVER DAM: IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD WEB STABILITY
The construction of dams represents one of the most pervasive influences on large-river ecosystems, and is commonly cited as a major factor contributing to the decline of native species. While natural resource agencies have spent millions of dollars to restore physical habitat attributes and flow regimes associated with dams, few efforts have considered how these abiotic alterations reverberate through the food web and influence trophic interactions. To address this disconnect, we combined multiple estimates of habitat complexity (e.g., benthic substrate heterogeneity, percentage of off-channel habitats and in-stream islands, temperature and flow regimes), benthic macroinvertebrate community structure and production, and fish diets along a longitudinal gradient of dam alteration in the regulated Missouri River in Montana, USA. Our results indicate a trend of increasing habitat complexity, more diverse macroinvertebrate communities, larger diet breadths of sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus spp.) species, and decreasing diet overlap between sympatric shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) and pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) with increasing distance from the dam. These findings highlight the potential for large-river dams to alter stabilizing food-web characteristics, which must be considered for effective natural resource management of these highly modified systems in the future.
- Food Webs
- Predator-prey
- Community
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Presenters/Authors
Eric Scholl
(), Montana State University, escholl86@gmail.com ;
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Addie Dutton
(), Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, Montana State University , adeline.dutton@msu.montana.edu;
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Wyatt Cross
(), Montana State University, wyatt.cross@montana.edu ;
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Christopher Guy
(), U.S. Geological Survey, Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, Montana State University, cguy@montana.edu;
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