2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

5/21/2018 | 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM | IMPACT OF LOST FLOODS ON FOOD WEBS AND FISH IN A REGULATED RIVER-FLOODPLAIN | 420 A

IMPACT OF LOST FLOODS ON FOOD WEBS AND FISH IN A REGULATED RIVER-FLOODPLAIN

In river-floodplains, spatial heterogeneity creates and maintains a food web mosaic that sustains fishes across different life stages, but losses of natural fluvial dynamics due to river regulation may potentially alter these processes. During 2015-2016, we investigated how decreased hydrologic connectivity due to regulation affected food webs in a river-floodplain of the Snake River, Idaho, USA, by generating flow food webs and estimating trophic basis of fish production within a range of floodplain habitats. Here, we compare two of these habitats: one springbrook reach scoured by periodic connection to the Snake River and another not scoured since 1997 that possesses deep silt deposits and dense macrophytes. We observed that overall, there is a larger flow of energy through the food web in the connected, scoured reach when compared to the disconnected reach, and the trophic basis of trout production in the connected reach was sustained by a greater proportion of aquatic insects, as opposed to more non-insect taxa in the disconnected reach. The loss of hydrologic connectivity appears to be altering the food web mosaic of the Snake River floodplain, with potential implications for the life histories of fishes.

Floodplain
Flood
Fish

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Presenters/Authors

James Paris (), Stream Ecology Center, Dept. Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, parijame@isu.edu;