Water Stewardship Information Sources

Resource Name Cumulative industrial activity alters lotic fish assemblages in two boreal forest watersheds of Alberta, Canada
Unique File Number 347
Information Type applied Research
Surface Water
Aquatic Ecosystem A
Groundwater
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Information Subtype aquatic ecology
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Resource Name Scrimgeour, GJ et al. 2008. Cumulative industrial activity alters lotic fish assemblages in two boreal forest watersheds of Alberta, Canada. Environmental Management 42(6): 957-970.
Resource Purpose We evaluated the cumulative effects of land use disturbance resulting from forest harvesting, and exploration and extraction of oil and gas resources on the occurrence and structure of stream fish assemblages in the Kakwa and Simonette watersheds in Alberta, Canada. Logistic regression models showed that the occurrence of numerically dominant species in both watersheds was related to two metrics defining industrial activity (i.e., percent disturbance and road density), in addition to stream wetted width, elevation, reach slope, and percent fines. Occurrences of bull trout, slimy sculpin, and white sucker were negatively related to percent disturbance and that of Arctic grayling, and mountain whitefish were positively related to percent disturbance and road density. Assessments of individual sites showed that 76% of the 74 and 46 test sites in the Kakwa and Simonette watersheds were possibly impaired or impaired. Impaired sites in the Kakwa Watershed supported lower densities of bull trout, mountain whitefish, and rainbow trout, but higher densities of Arctic grayling compared to appropriate reference sites. Impaired sites in the Simonette Watershed supported lower densities of bull trout, but higher densities of lake chub compared to reference sites. Our data suggest that current levels of land use disturbance alters the occurrence and structure of stream fish assemblages.
Type of Information article
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Program Status complete
NE Coverage boreal Plains
Drinking Water
Ecosystem y
Fish y
Groundwater
Public Safety
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SW Quantity
Link http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-008-9207-2
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