Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference 2018

AUTHORS. Robert Shields, Mark Pyron, Mario Minder, Caleb Artz - Ball State University; Emily Arsenault, Greg Mathews - University of Kansas

ABSTRACT. Stream interactions with surrounding landscapes can influence nutrient concentrations, suspended solids, habitat, and substrate composition. Valley shape can influence frequency and degree a stream interacts with the surrounding landscape. In a constrained valley the walls are steeper and closer together, limiting the movement of water into the adjacent land. Wide valleys have increased flat floodplain that is inundated during high water events. We used multidimensional scaling to identify variation in fish assemblages among river segments with wide or constrained valleys and for rivers with and without introduced species. We identified variation in fish assemblages for constrained and wide valleys that supported the riverine ecosystem synthesis hypothesis.