2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

6/06/2017 | 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM | FISH FOOD WEBS IN RIVER MACROSYSTEMS OF THE U.S. GREAT BASIN | 302B

FISH FOOD WEBS IN RIVER MACROSYSTEMS OF THE U.S. GREAT BASIN

Developments in riverine ecology demonstrate that rivers can be most accurately viewed as mosaics of interacting hydrogeomorphic patches, or functional process zones (FPZs), as opposed to continuous gradients of change from upstream to downstream. FPZs are interacting patches at the reach-to-valley scale that are characterized by unique sets of hydrogeomorphic and environmental habitat features. Differences in FPZs should affect food web relationships, including the relative availability of different basal carbon sources and the resulting food chain length. In a summer 2016 ecoregion-wide study of 3 terminal basin rivers of the U.S. Great Basin, we investigated food sources and food chain length at the FPZ scale. We used compound-specific stable isotope analysis of amino acids of carbon and nitrogen to determine the basal sources of carbon and the trophic positions of most resident fish species. Results showed significant differences in food web relationships among FPZ sites. As one of the first of its kind, this empirical study offers important insight into riverine theory while also offering potential conservation strategies in the context of global climate change and species invasion.

C25 Food Webs
C02 Fish and Other Aquatic Vertebrates
S29 Macrosystem Ecology of Aquatic Systems

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Presenters/Authors

Emily Arsenault (), University of Kansas, erarsenault@ku.edu;