An Evaluation of Qualitative Indexes of Physical Habitat Applied to Agricultural Streams in Ten U.S. States¹

Abstract

Hughes, Robert M., Alan T. Herlihy, and Philip R. Kaufmann, 2010. An Evaluation of Qualitative Indexes of Physical Habitat Applied to Agricultural Streams in Ten U.S. States. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(4): 792‐806. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2010.00455.x Abstract: Assessment of stream physical habitat condition is important for evaluating stream quality globally. However, the diversity of metrics and methods for assessing physical habitat condition confounds comparisons among practitioners. We surveyed 51 previously sampled stream sites (0.0‐6.3 m wide) located in regions of row‐crop agriculture in Oregon, California, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia to evaluate the comparability of four indexes of physical habitat condition relative to each other. We also compared the indexes to previously calculated indexes of fish and macroinvertebrate condition. The physical habitat indexes included the Stream Visual Assessment Protocol Version 2 of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the qualitative habitat evaluation index of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the rapid bioassessment protocol of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and a qualitative physical habitat index based on USEPA quantitative physical habitat measurements. All four indexes were highly correlated with each other, but low‐to‐moderately correlated with biotic index scores for fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages. Moderately high correlations occurred between some macroinvertebrate biotic index scores and quantitative metrics. We conclude that additional research is needed to increase the predictive and diagnostic capabilities of qualitative physical habitat indexes.

Can Rapid Assessments Predict the Biotic Condition of Restored Streams?

“…Paired comparison of the total raw points for the five stream assessments revealed that all methods were significant and positively correlated (r = 0.57 to 0.76) to each other. These results are similar to those found by others when comparing stream assessment method points at non-restored streams [12,16,17,19]. In addition, macroinvertebrates were also collected from all 65 restored streams.…”

“…Linear regression of macroinvertebrate metrics to the five stream assessment methods resulted in some significant relationships; however, unexplained variance in data was high, as demonstrated by low coefficients of determination. Weak correlation results are similar to other studies that compared rapid assessment results to fish and macroinvertebrate community or biotic integrity metrics [12,16,19].…”

Is the diet of a typical shredder related to the physical habitat of headwater streams in the Brazilian Cerrado?

“…Previous studies have shown that the complexity of site-scale physical habitat influences the composition, biomass and richness of benthic macroinvertebrates, the temporal stability of assemblages, and ecological processes including nutrient and hydrologic retention (Hughes et al, 2010;Kaufmann and Faustini, 2012;Kovalenko et al, 2012). Quinn and Hickey (1990) observed greater shredder biomass in streams with greater riparian vegetation densities.…”

“…For over six decades, much of its natural vegetation has been replaced by pastures and row crops (Diniz-Filho et al, 2009). The removal of the riparian vegetation increases erosion, turbidity and bed sedimentation, water temperature and the abundance of aquatic macrophytes, leading to habitat simplification and affecting the distribution, richness and abundance of aquatic macroinvertebrates (Chapman and Chapman, 2002;Kaufmann et al, 2009;Hughes et al, 2010;Kaufmann and Faustini, 2012).…”

Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness

“…As geographic information system (GIS) technology has become operationally simpler and widely available (King et al, 2005), disturbances identified at the catchment scale have been used for defining potential reference areas (Collier et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2008). However, human modifications acting at both large (catchment) and local (stream channel and riparian zone) scales should be investigated because pressures or stressors operating at both scales can impair the stream biota (Bryce et al, 1999;Whittier et al, 2007b;Hughes et al, 2010).…”