| Summary: | Freshwater ecosystems worldwide are degraded by habitat loss, fragmentation and conversion. The practice of ecological river restoration has developed to address degradation, but there has been limited monitoring and assessment of river restoration projects that could be used to improve the science of restoration ecology. I used meta-analysis and studied floodplain ponds restored for juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in southwestern British Columbia, Canada to test ecological and conservation science hypotheses about how restoration projects are planned and assessed. I evaluated the efficacy of the umbrella species concept, which suggests that conservation strategies designed for one species may benefit co-occurring species, using meta-analysis. I empirically assessed the potential for coho to be an umbrella species in restored ponds. I studied the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (i.e., standing biomass) and explicitly considered the role of habitat complexity in mediating that relationship. I evaluated the influence of habitat at different scales (watershed, pond and micro-habitat) on the abundance and biomass of juvenile coho and other aquatic vertebrates. I used standard meta-analytic techniques to assess the umbrella species concept and found conservation strategies designed for umbrella species generally benefit co-occurring species. For the empirical studies, I sampled vertebrates in 17 restored ponds in three watersheds three times over a year. I sampled benthic invertebrates and algae once and documented habitat (e.g., depth, cover) at the pond and trap scale. Coho abundance and biomass, as well as that of other aquatic species, varied across ponds indicating a gradient in response to restoration. There was a positive relationship between species diversity and standing biomass, although that relationship was not consistent across taxonomic groups or with respect to habitat complexity. There was a relationship between watershed-scale habitat features (e.g., landcover, elevation) and the relative abundance and biomass of species present, however, different species responded similarly to micro-habitat types suggesting that watershed scale factors acted as a filter for community composition. This study demonstrated that valuable insight into restoration can be gained by studying patterns from a broad study of restored systems and that restoration designed around a single species can benefit other species.
|
|---|
