1. Frontiers of Biomonitoring
(1) Multi-scale Biomonitoring
The River Environment Classification
(Snelder & Biggs 2002, J. Amer. Water Resources Assoc.)
Approach developed in New Zealand to get away from reliance on ecoregions, because important environmental characteristics of streams can vary greatly within ecoregions, for example …
substrate
local stream slope
flow regime (e.g., groundwater vs. runoff)
water chemisty
riparian vegetation
Using this approach, a “reference” stream would be assigned to each of the unique classes of stream types

2. Frontiers of Biomonitoring
(2) Consistent assessment approaches (to get beyond IBI, B-IBI, etc.)
The Biological Condition Gradient
(Davies & Jackson, 2002, Ecological Applications)
Attempt to develop a more consistent basis for straightforward interpretation of ecological impairment.
The BCG tells us ecological impairment relative to regional naturalness.
Expert biologists in blind trials shown to mostly agree on which category (1-6) a given biological sample falls in.
Biological Condition
Stressor Gradient
Low
High 1
Native or natural condition 2
Minimal loss of species; some density changes may occur 3
Some replacement of sensitive-rare species; functions fully maintained 4
Some sensitive species maintained but notable replacement by more tolerant taxa; altered distributions; functions largely maintained 5 6
Tolerant species show increasing dominance; sensitive species are rare; functions altered
Severe alteration of structure and function
Natural
Degraded

3. Tier 5-6 Severely alterted Tier 1-2 “natural” 2nd order, forested
Biological Condition
Stressor Gradient
Low
High 1
Native or natural condition 2
Minimal loss of species; some density changes may occur 3
Some replacement of sensitive-rare species; functions fully maintained 4
Some sensitive species maintained but notable replacement by more tolerant taxa; altered distributions; functions largely maintained 5 6
Tolerant species show increasing dominance; sensitive species are rare; functions altered
Severe alteration of structure and function
Natural
Degraded
Tier 5-6
Severely alterted
Tier 1-2 “natural”
2nd order, forested
1 inch
3rd order, shopping mall
Caddisflies
Mayflies
Stoneflies
Caddisflies
Snails
Midges
Leeches
Scuds
Beetles
Craneflies
Mayflies
Beetles
Dragonflies, Damselflies
Midges

4. Hierarchical approach to “stratify” stream reaches (Fig. 1)

5. Can classify all stream reaches in a watershed and group “similar” ones together. Similar stream reaches can be in different watersheds or ecoregions, i.e., this is a geographically-independent classification. (Fig. 2)
Has been used succesffully in New Zealand.

6. Urbanization and Agriculture (Moore and Palmer 2005)
Mixed land uses near Washington DC
Land use affects benthic richness.
Richness inversely related to %imperviousness
4 land use classes
Riparian buffers improve urban streams …
Best management practices explain regional differences in biological condition?
but what about Ag?

7. Legacy Effects
Harding et al. (1998, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.):
Sampled 12 sites (streams) in each of 2 major watersheds in the southern Appalachians.
Used GIS to estimate %forest and % agriculture for each of 24 subwatersheds.”
Benthic inverts more diverse and more EPT in forested streams
Why ?
Any other unmeasured factors that might be important?
Why greater invertebrate diversity in forested vs. agriculture watershed?
INVERTS
Taxonomic richness: Forest > AG because sedimentation reduces EPT
Density: Forest = AG because ??? Tolerant/dominant species?
FISH
Species richness: AG > Forest because ??? Not clear from authors … possibly stream SIZE (mention water column species and loss of trout/sculpin)?
Abundance: AG > Forest because ??? SIZE again?

8. Interesting finding:
Historical (1950) land use better predictor of current biological community than current (1990) land use (Table 2).
Historical “legacy” of agriculture in present-day forested watersheds. Two invert communities in forested areas are “outliers” (i.e. they have species composition that is very similar (clusters with) agricultural streams (open symbols on left side of graph). These forested streams had ~40% riparian agriculture 40 years prior to sampling.
Study raises questions about how quickly streams can recover from extensive land use alteration.

9. Urbanization The “urban stream syndrome” (Booth 2005)
(Walsh et al. 2005)
The “urban stream syndrome”

10. Urban hydrology
(Roy et al. 2005)
Low flows also often decline with greater “imperviousness” (surrogate for urbanization effects). [Fig. 2 below]
(Booth 2005)
Streams have more frequent, shorter duration high flows (than forested “reference”.)
[Lower value of TQmean shows this in Fig. 2]

11. Urbanization and stream channels
Y-axis: 10-yr peak flow in forested catchment divided by 2-yr peak flow for a given level of development (% “impervious” surface in catchment). Low value means “flashy”. Value of 1 means 10-yr forest peak flow = current 2-yr peak flow.
Increasing flashiness
A ~10% “threshold”?

12. Urbanization and ecological condition:
B-IBI declines with increased urban
A “threshold” at 10-15% impervious area?
(Booth 2005)
Seattle area
Any evidence for threshold response??

13. Urbanization and ecosystem processes:
Fine benthic OM greatly decreased in urban streams
(Meyer et al. 2005)

14. Urbanization and fish responses:
Fish richness and abundance:
generally declines for endemics, sensitive, fluvial specialists.
can increase for lentic tolerant.
(Table 5)
Hydrologic alteration strongly correlated with changes in fish communities (species traits!)
(Table 7)
(Roy et al. 2005)

15. Urbanization and fish responses:
Can depend on natural environmental setting.
PIEDMONT
COASTAL PLAIN
Maryland Fish IBI sensitive to urbanization in PIEDMONT region but not COASTAL PLAIN streams
Any thoughts why?
(Hint: Recall fish IBI in Colorado)
(Morgan and Cushman 2005)

16. The Urban Stream Research Frontier?
1) Better characterization of hydrologic alteration:
Most research on urban impacts to streams has concentrated on correlations between instream ecological metrics and total catchment imperviousness. Recent research shows that some of the variance in such relationships can be explained by the distance between the stream reach and urban land, or by the hydraulic efficiency of stormwater drainage.
2) Whole catchment experimentation to identify the best management approaches to conservation and restoration of streams in urban catchments.
3) Restoration?
(Walsh et al. 2005)

17. 8 year project in Seattle area (Fig. 3)
Urban Stream Restoration -- a big challenge
Placement of cobble, LWD
Burial by sand
8 years later - nice riparian, but no salmon spawning
8 year project in Seattle area (Fig. 3)
Adult salmon find urban “restored” streams but reproductive success is very low (Fig. 5)

18. Why is restoration so difficult?
Land Use alters ‘balance’ of Q and Qs
Aggradation (Qs > Q)
Degradation (Qs < Q)
Urbanization
(Frissell and Nawa 1992)
• 161 fish-habitat structures in 15 streams in southwest Oregon and southwest Washington.
• Project failure was common (median damage rate 5 60% following a single flood, with a 2- to 10-y recurrence interval
• Failure most widespread in streams with signs of recent catchment disturbance, high sediment loads, and unstable channels.
• Re-establishment of natural catchment and riparian processes needed to create stable habitat, not simply the construction of instream features.
Deforestation
Wohl et al. 2005
“Excess” sediment (agricultural catchments?)

19. Restoration at national scale?
Bernhardt et al. (2005, Science)
National River Restoration Science Synthesis (NRRSS) database with ~37,099 projects (
At least $14 to $15 billion spent since 1990 on restoration of streams and rivers (excluding ‘big ticket’ items such as Glen Canyon, San Francisco Bay, Columbia River, Missouri River, etc.)

20. Only 10% of project records indicate any form of monitoring for success

21. What are criteria for restoration success?