Factors influencing riverine fish assemblages in Massachusetts

Abstract

For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1-888-ASK-USGS.For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprodTo order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this report. AbstractThe U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, conducted an investigation of fish assemblages in small-to medium-sized Massachusetts streams. The objective of this study was to determine relations between fish-assemblage characteristics and anthropogenic factors, including impervious cover and estimated flow alteration, relative to the effects of environmental factors, including physical-basin characteristics and land use. The results of this investigation supersede those of a preliminary analysis published in 2010. Fish data were obtained for 669 fish-sampling sites from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife fish-community database. A review of the literature was used to select fish metrics-species richness, abundance of individual species, and abundances of species grouped on life history traits-responsive to flow alteration. The contributing areas to the fish-sampling sites were delineated and used with a geographic information system to determine a set of environmental and anthropogenic factors that were tested for use as explanatory variables in regression models. Reported and estimated withdrawals and return flows were used together with simulated unaltered streamflows to estimate altered streamflows and indicators of flow alteration for each fish-sampling site. Altered streamflows and indicators of flow alteration were calculated on the basis of methods developed in a previous U.S. Geological Survey study in which unaltered daily streamflows were simulated for a 44-year period (water years 2 1961-2004), and streamflow alterations were estimated by use of water-withdrawal and wastewater-return data previously reported to the State for the 2000-04 period and estimated domestic-well withdrawals and septic-system discharges.A variable selection process, conducted using principal components analysis and Spearman rank correlation, was used to select a set of 15 non-redundant environmental and anthropogenic factors to test for use as explanatory variables in the regression analyses. Twenty-one fish species were used in a multivariate analysis of fish-assemblage patterns. Results of nonmetric multidimensional scaling and hiera...

Fish and Invertebrate Flow‐Biology Relationships to Support the Determination of Ecological Flows for North Carolina

“…The invertebrate data included in this study were collected using either the NC DENR full‐scale or swamp methods. Temporal and spatial filters were applied to reduce pseudoreplication and autocorrelation arising from the proximity of samples sites in time and space (Hurlbert, ; Armstrong et al ., ). This was accomplished by only including data from the most recent sample collection at each site (between 1982 and 2011) and applying a spatial filter that flagged sites within 0.5 km of each other (Wenger et al ., ).…”

“…Sites that changed COMIDs during georeferencing were assessed and placed on the correct stream, as indicated by NC DENR site name. If the sites were sampled at the same time and located along the same stream with no direct human alterations between sites ( e.g ., reservoir, withdrawal, or return), the most downstream site was kept and the upstream site deleted (Armstrong et al ., ). If the sites were sampled at different times, were located in different streams, or had an instream alteration between them, then both sites were kept in the analysis.…”

“…This helps to identify the effects of flow alteration in an environment in which other stressors such as water quality, habitat structure, or sampling season reduce the effect on the biological parameter being considered. Quantile regression is also more robust against outliers than traditional regression ( i.e ., regression to the mean) and has been well established for assessing ecological and flow‐biology relationships (Armstrong et al ., ). Although both 80th and 90th percentile quantile regressions were explored to represent the upper limit of the biological response to flow alteration, the 80th percentile was selected to be less conservative and incorporate a larger range of flow alteration.…”

Effects of streamflow reductions on aquatic macroinvertebrates: linking groundwater withdrawals and assemblage response in southern New Jersey streams, USA

“…Leonard and Orth 1988, Van Winkle et al 1998, Railsback et al 2009); however, recent efforts have strived to develop flow-response models that have broader applicability (e.g. Armstrong et al 2011, Freeman et al 2012, Murphy et al 2012. For this study, the development of empirical FAMs at the basin scale may have broader regional transferability to other streams in the New Jersey Pinelands that respond similarly to groundwater withdrawal because they are underlain by a common aquifer (i.e.…”

The Performance Analysis of Two Relatively Small Capacity Urban Retrofit Stormwater Controls

“…Numerous scientific investigations have explored the relationship between the biological or ecosystem health of streams and the amount of impervious surface in associated tributary watershed areas. Results of these investigations consistently reveal that even relatively small amounts of untreated impervious surfaces in tributary drainage areas are a significant causative factor to aquatic life impairments and nonattainment of water quality standards (Klein 1979;Schueler 1994;Booth and Jackson 1997;Schueler et al 2009;Weiskel et al 2009;Armstrong et al 2011). …”