Conservation potential of artificial water bodies for fish communities on a heavily modified agricultural floodplain

Davis, Aaron M.; Moore, Alex R.

doi:10.1002/aqc.2607

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Hydrologically altered wetlands can support some of the original fauna. For example, the highly modified wetlands in the Burdekin delta support native fish species (Davis & Moore, ), and small remnant riparian wetlands are important for bird biodiversity (Keir, Pearson, & Congdon, ). Similarly, the frequent water flushing of some floodplain lagoons in the Wet Tropics has maintained good water quality and relatively high fish diversity, despite the variable connectivity with main river channels (Arthington et al, ).…”

Section: Status and Threats To Wetlands Within The Gbr Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing threats and restoring wetlands within catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Adame

Arthington

Waltham

et al. 2019

Aquatic Conservation

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1. The catchments of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia include more than one million ha of wetlands, which help to sustain the health and resilience of the reef.2. This article reviews the status, values, and threats of wetlands in the GBR catchments, as well as the management, protection, and challenges and opportunities for their restoration and rehabilitation.3. At present, wetlands in the GBR catchments have low rates of area loss and are generally well protected; however, they face major management challenges owing to the intensive land use of the catchments, especially for grazing, agriculture, horticulture, and mining. Major threats to these wetlands include water pollution, invasive species, changes in hydrology, and increasing temperature and salinity resulting from climate change.4. In recent years wetlands have been considered primarily for their role in improving water quality to ameliorate contaminated terrestrial run-off to the GBR, with little attention given to their intrinsic value and other ecosystem services. 5. Financial opportunities for wetland restoration in addition to government-funded schemes include water pollution offsets, payment for ecosystem services, and nitrogen markets.6. Wetlands need to be protected, managed, and restored for the ecosystem services that they provide to the GBR, but also for their intrinsic value as significant features of coastal landscapes.

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Section: Status and Threats To Wetlands Within The Gbr Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing threats and restoring wetlands within catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Adame

Arthington

Waltham

et al. 2019

Aquatic Conservation

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“…They are also among the most desirable and agriculturally productive landscapes globally and therefore ideal locations for case-studies on innovative reconciliation ecology-inspired, multi-benefit land use innovations [ 10 ]. Furthermore, these lands are managed to perform economically valuable functions of human food production and flood risk mitigation while simultaneously providing critical ecosystem benefits such as nutrient cycling, aquifer recharge, habitat creation, and conservation of biodiversity in heavily altered landscapes [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling fish and farms: Methods for managing California rice fields as salmon habitat

et al. 2021

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Rearing habitat for juvenile Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in California, the southernmost portion of their range, has drastically declined throughout the past century. Recently, through cooperative agreements with diverse stakeholders, winter-flooded agricultural rice fields in California’s Central Valley have emerged as ecologically functioning floodplain rearing habitat for juvenile Chinook Salmon. From 2013 to 2016, we conducted a series of experiments examining methods to enhance habitat benefits for fall-run Chinook Salmon reared on winter-flooded rice fields in the Yolo Bypass, a modified floodplain managed for flood control, agriculture, and wildlife habitat in the Sacramento River Valley of California. Investigations included studying the effect of 1) post-harvest field substrate; 2) depth refugia; 3) duration of field drainage; and 4) duration of rearing occupancy on in-situ diet, growth and survival of juvenile salmon. Post-harvest substrate treatment had only a small effect on the lower trophic food web and an insignificant effect on growth rates or survival of rearing hatchery-origin, fall-run Chinook Salmon. Similarly, depth refugia, created by trenches dug to various depths, also had an insignificant effect on survival. Rapid field drainage yielded significantly higher survival compared to drainage methods drawn out over longer periods. A mortality of approximately one third was observed in the first week after fish were released in the floodplain. This initial mortality event was followed by high, stable survival rates for the remainder of the 6-week duration of floodplain rearing study. Across years, in-field survival ranged 7.4–61.6% and increased over the course of the experiments. Despite coinciding with the most extreme drought in California’s recorded history, which elevated water temperatures and reduced the regional extent of adjacent flooded habitats which concentrated avian predators, the adaptive research framework enabled incremental improvements in design to increase survival. Zooplankton (fish food) in the winter-flooded rice fields were 53-150x more abundant than those sampled concurrently in the adjacent Sacramento River channel. Correspondingly, observed somatic growth rates of juvenile hatchery-sourced fall-run Chinook Salmon stocked in rice fields were two to five times greater than concurrently and previously observed growth rates in the adjacent Sacramento River. The abundance of food resources and exceptionally high growth rates observed during these experiments illustrate the potential benefits of using existing agricultural infrastructure to approximate the floodplain wetland physical conditions and hydrologic patterns (shallow, long-duration inundation of cool floodplain habitats in mid-winter) under which Chinook Salmon evolved and to which they are adapted.

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“…The influence of exotic aquatic plants on fish assemblage patterns in Tully–Murray floodplain wetlands is echoed in similar studies on the Burdekin floodplain, north‐east Australia (Waltham & Fixler, 2017). Consistent with the Tully–Murray study, Davis and Moore (2015) report evidence that artificial water bodies can make useful contributions to fish conservation in a floodplain environment dominated by agriculture.…”

Section: Contributions Of the Papermentioning

confidence: 65%

Integrating freshwater wetland science into planning for Great Barrier Reef sustainability

Arthington

Pearson

Godfrey

et al. 2020

Aquatic Conservation

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The paper ‘Biodiversity values of remnant freshwater floodplain lagoons in agricultural catchments: evidence for fish of the Wet Tropics bioregion, northern Australia’, published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems in 2015, has contributed in several ways to the integration of freshwater wetland science within new catchment management policies and practices for Great Barrier Reef (GBR) sustainability. The Tully–Murray biodiversity study developed novel protocols to sample larval, juvenile, and adult fish life‐history stages in floodplain lagoons using a combination of boat‐based backpack electrofishing and fyke netting. In addition, hydrological and hydrodynamic models were applied in a completely new way to quantify the timing, extent, and duration of water connectivity across floodplain streams, cane drains, and wetlands. Combining the two novel approaches enabled an analysis of lagoon fish assemblage patterns in relation to environmental gradients, especially floodplain hydrology, connectivity patterns, and measures related to agricultural land use. In demonstrating the importance of different levels of connectivity for different biodiversity outcomes in freshwater floodplain lagoons of the Tully–Murray catchment, the subject paper established that floodplain connectivity needs to be taken into consideration in wetland management practices. The timing of the subject publication was fortuitous. It coincided with the preparation of the evidence‐based 2017 Scientific Consensus Statement on land‐based water quality impacts on the GBR. As one of the few freshwater wetland ecology publications for the catchments of the GBR at that time, this paper played an important role in demonstrating freshwater wetland values, fish conservation options, and management imperatives to sustain wetland ecological health and services in GBR catchments. By advancing the understanding of factors driving biodiversity patterns, and the importance of connectivity and ecohydrological processes in freshwater floodplain wetlands of the GBR catchment, the Tully–Murray study helped to drive new policy directives for the protection and restoration of catchment, floodplain, and estuary functions, and connectivity, now embedded in the Reef 2050 Long‐Term Sustainability Plan 2018, an overarching strategy for managing the GBR over the next 35 years, and complementary Queensland environmental legislation.

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Conservation potential of artificial water bodies for fish communities on a heavily modified agricultural floodplain

Cited by 17 publications

References 41 publications

Managing threats and restoring wetlands within catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Managing threats and restoring wetlands within catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Reconciling fish and farms: Methods for managing California rice fields as salmon habitat

Integrating freshwater wetland science into planning for Great Barrier Reef sustainability

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