Habitat Structure and Stream Fish Communities

Abstract

Stream habitat complexity is correlated with fish species diversity in selected Indiana and Panama streams. Habitat diversity was measured along 3 dimensions judged important to a wide range of fish groups and applicable to many stream conditions: stream depth, bottom type, and current. Increasing community and habitat diversity followed stream—order gradients. Natural streams supported fish communities of high species diversity which were seasonally more stable than the lower—diversity communities of modified streams. After disturbances such as channelization, seasonal peaks in species diversity attain levels typical of undisturbed streams. Because seasonal changes in stream quality are high, the stability of the fish community is lower in modified than in natural streams. The general correlation between habitat characteristics and presence and absence of fish species suggests that most fishes of small streams are habitat specialists.

Effects of isolation and environmental variables on fish community structure in the Brazilian Amazon Madeira-Purus interfluve

“…The observed influence of physical variables on species composition is similar to findings obtained in other studies conducted in temperate (Gorman and Karr 1978;Martin-Smith, 1998;Oberdorff et al, 2001) and tropical streams (Angermeier and Schlosser, 1989;Barrella and Petrere Jr., 1994;Araújo-Lima et al, 1999;Uieda and Barretto, 1999;Mendonça et al, 2005) and is in accordance with the river continuum concept (Vannotte et al, 1980), where species abundance and richness increase with enlargement of the stream channel due to greater heterogeneity or increased habitat availability. The observation of physical variation related to the size of the sampled water bodies, although an expected result, is strongly dependent on the selection of streams for sampling.…”

“…However, fish community structure is also thought to be influenced by biotic and abiotic factors, which operate and interact on various spatial and temporal scales (Angermeier and Winston, 1998;Matthews, 1998). On a regional scale, physical characteristics, such as stream size (Angermeier and Karr, 1984), water velocity (Mendonça et al, 2005), depth (Angermeier and Karr, 1984;Martin-Smith, 1998), and habitat diversity (Gorman and Karr 1978;Angermeier and Schlosser, 1989), or physico-chemical properties, such as electrical conductivity (Taylor et al, 1993;Mérigoux et al, 1998) and pH (Townsend et al, 1983), have also been considered to be factors that govern the occurrence and distribution of fish species.…”

Composition and structure of fish assemblage from Passa Cinco stream, Corumbataí river sub-basin, SP, Brazil

“…From these data, the habitat heterogeneity at each site was estimated using the Shannon diversity index (Gorman and Karr, 1978).…”

“…aspects in determining the distribution of stream fishes (Gorman and Karr, 1978;Argermeier and Karr, 1983). The combination of each aspects of these environmental characteristics produces a mosaic of microhabitats that changes along the gradient according to the physical conditions, which requires adjustments in the biological communities living there (Vannote et al, 1980).…”

“…These changes usually are associated with habitat changes along the gradient (Gorman and Karr, 1978). Matthews and Styron (1981) also suggested that the physical and chemical conditions in the headwaters are more stressful than in the lower portions, so that few fish species can colonize these areas.…”