Concordance among fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages in Indiana streams

• Main Author: Backus, Julia K.
• Other Authors: Pyron, Mark, 1960-
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Fish communities > Indiana; Stream ecology > Indiana
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/123456789/198109; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1745600

Our objective was to quantify if macroinvertebrate assemblages in Indiana streams were better predicted from co-occurring fish assemblages or environmental variables. We used Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) with forward-selection of variables to identify significant environmental predictor variables for macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages. A partial Mantel test was used to determine if fish assemblage composition and macroinvertebrate assemblage composition significantly co-vary while controlling for environmental effects. The CCAs resulted in two significant predictors of macroinvertebrate distribution and relative abundance, and four significant predictors of fish distribution and relative abundance. Similarity matrices of fish and macroinvertebrates were significantly correlated in the Mantel (r = 0.22, p = 0.019) and partial Mantel tests (r = 0.23, p = 0.013). Our results suggest that macroinvertebrates respond to local and regional environmental variation, and less to local presence of fishes. === Department of Biology