Individual Behavior Drives Ecosystem Function and the Impacts of Harvest

Current approaches for biodiversity conservation and management focus on sustaining high levels of diversity among species to maintain ecosystem function. We show that the diversity among individuals within a single population drives function at the ecosystem scale. Specifically, nutrient supply from individual fish differs from the population average \u3e80% of the time, and accounting for this individual variation nearly doubles estimates of nutrients supplied to the ecosystem. We test how management (i.e., selective harvest regimes) can alter ecosystem function and find that strategies targeting more active individuals reduce nutrient supply to the ecosystem up to 69%, a greater effect than body size–selective or nonselective harvest. Findings show that movement behavior at the scale of the individual can have crucial repercussions for the functioning of an entire ecosystem, proving an important challenge to the species-centric definition of biodiversity if the conservation and management of ecosystem function is a primary goal

Beaver activity increases habitat complexity and spatial partitioning by steelhead trout

Freshwater habitat restoration is a major conservation objective, motivating efforts to restore habitat complexity and quality for fishes. Restoration based on the engineering activities of beavers (Castor canadensis) increases fish habitat complexity, but how this affects fish habitat use and movement behaviours is not well known. We used a network of passive integrated transponder (PIT) antennas to quantify small-scale movement and microhabitat use of 175 individual juvenile steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in a stream channel with a complex bathymetric profile resulting from a beaver impoundment, and a simplified channel devoid of beaver activity. Our results show that juvenile steelhead exploit microhabitat heterogeneity by employing a range of behaviours that maximizes available habitat via spatial and temporal partitioning among individuals. These results suggest spatial resource partitioning as a potential mechanism for the previously established positive correlations between steelhead density, survival, and production with beaver-based restoration within the study watershed. More broadly, our findings provide insight as to how populations can exploit habitat complexity through spatial partitioning that can be informative for planning restoration and management actions.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Alteration of stream temperature by natural and artificial beaver dams.

Beaver are an integral component of hydrologic, geomorphic, and biotic processes within North American stream systems, and their propensity to build dams alters stream and riparian structure and function to the benefit of many aquatic and terrestrial species. Recognizing this, beaver relocation efforts and/or application of structures designed to mimic the function of beaver dams are increasingly being utilized as effective and cost-efficient stream and riparian restoration approaches. Despite these verities, the notion that beaver dams negatively impact stream habitat remains common, specifically the assumption that beaver dams increase stream temperatures during summer to the detriment of sensitive biota such as salmonids. In this study, we tracked beaver dam distributions and monitored water temperature throughout 34 km of stream for an eight-year period between 2007 and 2014. During this time the number of natural beaver dams within the study area increased by an order of magnitude, and an additional 4 km of stream were subject to a restoration manipulation that included installing a high-density of Beaver Dam Analog (BDA) structures designed to mimic the function of natural beaver dams. Our observations reveal several mechanisms by which beaver dam development may influence stream temperature regimes; including longitudinal buffering of diel summer temperature extrema at the reach scale due to increased surface water storage, and creation of cool-water channel scale temperature refugia through enhanced groundwater-surface water connectivity. Our results suggest that creation of natural and/or artificial beaver dams could be used to mitigate the impact of human induced thermal degradation that may threaten sensitive species

Channel scale temperature variation.

<p>Channel scale temperature variation.</p

Beaver dam induced daily temperature buffering.

<p>Daily temperature regime measured within a beaver influenced site (red line) and the non-beaver influenced control site (black line) over a 10-day period in mid-summer (August 8 –August 17) for a year prior to (2008, left panels) and following (2013, right panels) BDA implementation and natural dam proliferation. Demonstrating buffering of diel temperature cycle (i.e., reduced daily range) in beaver affected sites relative to the control.</p

Distribution of daily stream temperature differences before and after beaver dam increase.

<p>Gaussian distribution of the seasonal difference in daily stream temperatures between the control site with no beaver dams (Rkm 32.39), and sites where dam abundance increased dramatically during the study period. Difference are expressed for each season before (grey curve) and after (black line curve) increased dam abundance for minimum, mean, and max daily stream temperature.</p

Moderation of maximum summer temperature by beaver dams.

<p>Linear relationship between August maximum daily temperatures measured below the control site with no upstream beaver activity (x-axis, rkm 32.39) and at a site (y-axis, rkm 6.16) prior to (open circles, 2008 and 2010) and following (black circles, 2013 and 2014) development of beaver dam complexes. This regression serves to demonstrate how buffering of daily temperature maxima by beavers minimizes the number of days that temperatures are above or approaching critical thresholds for juvenile steelhead (<i>O</i>.<i>mykiss</i>) during periods of extreme summer temperatures.</p

Channel scale stream temperature heterogeneity.

<p>High-density temperature monitoring locations (upper panels) and hourly stream temperature (lower panels) within the beaver dam/BDA impounded reach (left panels– 22 locations) and the unimpounded reach (right panels– 10 locations). Inset box shows narrow range of stream temperatures observed within the unimpounded reach due to lack of surface water—groundwater exchange.</p

BACI analysis of reach scale stream temperature.

<p>BACI analysis of reach scale stream temperature.</p