Stream macroinvertebrate reintroductions: A cautionary approach for restored urban streams

Clinton, Sandra M.; Hartman, Jacqueline; Macneale, Kate H.; Roy, Allison H.

doi:10.1086/721471

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The nearby watersheds (e.g., Lower Hudson River and Tibbetts Brook) are also highly urbanized (Coch et al 2017); therefore, colonization of new insect taxa from nearby streams into the Bronx River is unlikely. Furthermore, while the reintroduction of aquatic insects by restoration managers is possible, there are many challenges to the success of those reintroductions, and such efforts can be costly (Clinton et al 2022). Therefore, the differentiation in abundance and dominant taxa seen within Bronx River sites suggests that the preservation and support of current populations in the river is valuable for future restoration efforts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of Aquatic Insect Biodiversity in the Highly Urbanized Bronx River, NY

Lundquist

Scott

2023

Northeastern Naturalist

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Aquatic insects are important components of stream food webs and are greatly impacted by anthropogenic disturbances, including urbanization. Successful restoration of urban rivers is contingent on the growth of aquatic insect populations from colonizers from local, less-disturbed streams. However, rivers in highly urbanized watersheds may not have nearby source populations, and therefore must rely only on individuals already surviving in the river. At the regional level, urbanization is a homogenizing process, but the impacts could be heterogeneous at the local level. Therefore, some sites within highly urban rivers might support higher local biodiversity and provide source populations for restoration projects focused on other sites in the river. In this study, we collected aquatic insects from sites within the Bronx River, a highly urbanized river in the New York City metropolitan area, NY, in the summers of 2021 and 2022. We found that while taxonomic richness was similar among sites, insect abundance and dominant taxa, particularly members of Hydropsychidae (Trichoptera), varied significantly among sites. These findings suggest sites within the Bronx River are not homogenous and that some sites within the river harbor larger populations of aquatic insects and may be integral to the success of future conservation projects. This pattern of within-river heterogeneity may exist in other urban rivers and deserves consideration in determining conservation goals and the planning of stream-restoration projects.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of Aquatic Insect Biodiversity in the Highly Urbanized Bronx River, NY

Lundquist

Scott

2023

Northeastern Naturalist

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“…This promotes adaptive river ecosystem management. Lastly, effective monitoring requires ongoing support, funding, and collaboration among diverse stakeholders, such as government agencies, NGOs, academia, communities, and the private sector (Buxton et al 2020;Clinton et al 2022;Deacon et al 2023). Fostering partnerships and promoting data sharing enhances collective understanding, leading to more informed, sustainable, and resilient conservation strategies.…”

Section: Long-term Monitoring and Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macroinvertebrate conservation in river ecosystems: Challenges, restoration strategies, and integrated management approaches

Lim,

2023

Entomological Research

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River ecosystems face growing threats from human‐induced stressors, resulting in habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. Crucial to these ecosystems, macroinvertebrates maintain river health and functioning. In this review, we examine the challenges confronting macroinvertebrates, explore restoration strategies and management approaches, and shed light on knowledge gaps and future research directions. Habitat degradation, water pollution, climate change, and invasive species are discussed as key challenges. Various restoration strategies, such as in‐stream habitat restoration, flow regime restoration, riparian zone restoration, and connectivity restoration, are evaluated for macroinvertebrate conservation. Integrated catchment management, adaptive management, community‐based management, monitoring, and policy integration are highlighted as essential management approaches, and knowledge gaps in long‐term monitoring, innovative restoration techniques, climate change resilience, and policy incorporation are identified as areas calling for further research. Ultimately, a proactive, adaptable, and cooperative approach to river management will ensure macroinvertebrate conservation and sustainable river ecosystems.

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“…Monitoring activities in King County suggest that the poor biological condition at underperforming sites is due to a combination of watershed-, catchment-, and more local-scale factors such as extent of urban development, excessive fine sediments, and poor water quality in most degraded watersheds. In geographically isolated watersheds, poor B-IBI scores may also be a result of regional-scale factors limiting the dispersal of macroinvertebrates to these streams (Clinton et al, 2022;King County, 2020b). The idea that dispersal limitation could be a contributing factor explaining the poor biological condition is based on the fact that many streams in King County are in highly F I G U R E 1 (a) A scatterplot using macroinvertebrate Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) assessment data for streams and rivers across the Puget Lowland including King County, displaying the relationship between estimates of B-IBI condition (n = 782 samples from 280 unique sites, that is a combined dataset collected once per year between July and October from 2009 to 2017 by the King County Water and Land Resources Division (n = 583) and by another agency, the Washington Department of Ecology (n = 199)) and corresponding Index of Watershed Integrity (IWI) and Index of Catchment Integrity (ICI) values for each sample site from (0) low integrity to (1) high integrity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea that dispersal limitation could be a contributing factor explaining the poor biological condition is based on the fact that many streams in King County are in highly urbanized locations, where fragmented stream systems can restrict or prevent movement of stream macroinvertebrates ( Crook et al, 2015 ; McKinney, 2002 ). Also, in most urban areas of King County, it is common to have small streams much farther than 5 km from any high-quality streams, and this distance could limit the availability of healthy source populations for those streams ( Clinton et al, 2022 ; King County, 2020b ). In the sections below, we describe how we developed a landscape indicator based on an examination of dispersal indicators and other suitable candidates to determine if that would result in fewer underperforming sites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A multiscale landscape approach for prioritizing river and stream protection and restoration actions

et al. 2023

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River and stream conservation programs have historically focused on a single spatial scale, for example, a watershed or stream site. Recently, the use of landscape information (e.g., land use and land cover) at multiple spatial scales and over large spatial extents has highlighted the importance of incorporating a landscape perspective into stream protection and restoration activities. Previously, we developed a novel framework that links information about watershed-, catchment-, and reach-scale integrity with stream biological condition using scatterplots and a landscape integrity map. Here we examined an application of this approach for streams in urban and other settings in King County, Washington State, United States, where we related stream macroinvertebrate condition to two indices of landscape integrity, the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) nationally available Index of Watershed Integrity (IWI) and Index of Catchment Integrity (ICI). We generated a scatterplot of IWI versus ICI for sample sites, where points represented site macroinvertebrate condition from poor to good. The same data were also visualized as a landscape integrity map that displayed catchments of King County according to the level of watershed and catchment integrity (high or low IWI/ICI). Almost three-quarters of poor-condition sites were associated with high-integrity watersheds and catchments (i.e., underperforming sites), which suggested that either one or both national indicators were insufficient for this area, and that sites underperformed because of local-scale factors. In response, we used a catchment-scale indicator related to forest condition (PctForestCat) after examining several GIS-based dispersal indicators from the National Hydrography Dataset and other candidates from the USEPA's StreamCat dataset. We then compared the results of the scatterplots and maps based on the current and original analyses and found that many of the sites previously classified as underperforming now performed as expected, that is, they were poor-condition sites in poor-condition catchments. This analysis demonstrates how results based on a national dataset can be improved by developing an alternative that represents regionally important stressors.

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Stream macroinvertebrate reintroductions: A cautionary approach for restored urban streams

Cited by 11 publications

References 78 publications

Patterns of Aquatic Insect Biodiversity in the Highly Urbanized Bronx River, NY

Patterns of Aquatic Insect Biodiversity in the Highly Urbanized Bronx River, NY

Macroinvertebrate conservation in river ecosystems: Challenges, restoration strategies, and integrated management approaches

A multiscale landscape approach for prioritizing river and stream protection and restoration actions

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