Characterizing Fish Community Diversity Across Virginia Landscapes: Prerequisite for Conservation

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dc.contributor.authorAngermeier, Paul L.en
dc.contributor.authorWinston, M. R.en
dc.contributor.departmentFish and Wildlife Conservationen
dc.coverage.stateVirginiaen
dc.date.accessed2014-03-11en
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-27T13:06:09Zen
dc.date.available2014-03-27T13:06:09Zen
dc.date.issued1999-02en
dc.description.abstractThe number of community types occurring within landscapes is an important, but often unprotected, component of biological diversity. Generally applicable protocols for characterizing community diversity need to be developed to facilitate conservation. We used several multivariate techniques to analyze geographic variation in the composition of fish communities in Virginia streams. We examined relationships between community composition and six landscape variables: drainage basin, physiography, stream order, elevation, channel slope, and map coordinates. We compared patterns at two scales (statewide and subdrainage-specific to assess sensitivity of community classification to spatial scale. We also compared patterns based on characterizing communities by species composition vs. ecological composition. All landscape variables explained significant proportions of the variance in community composition. Statewide, they explained 32% of the variance in species composition and 48% of the variance in ecological composition. Typical communities in each drainage or physiography were statistically distinctive. Communities in different combinations of drainage, physiography, and stream size were even more distinctive, but composition was strongly spatially autocorrelated. Ecological similarity and species similarity of community pairs were strongly related, but replacement by ecologically similar species was common among drainage-physiography combinations. Landscape variables explained significant proportions of variance in community composition within selected subdrainages, but proportions were less than at the statewide scale, and the explanatory power of individual variables varied considerably among subdrainages. Community variation within subdrainages appeared to be much more closely related to environmental variation than to replacement among ecologically similar species. Our results suggest that taxonomic and ecological characterizations of community composition are complementary; both are useful in a conservation context. Landscape features such as drainage, physiography, and water body size generally may provide a basis for assessing aquatic community diversity, especially in regions where the biota is poorly known. Systematic conservation of community types would be a major advance relative to most current conservation programs, which typically focus narrowly on populations of imperiled species. More effective conservation of aquatic biodiversity will require new approaches that recognize the value of both species and assemblages, and that emphasize protection of key landscape-scale processes.en
dc.description.sponsorshipVirginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheriesen
dc.description.sponsorshipNational Fisheries Research Center Lee-townen
dc.description.versionPublished versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationPaul L. Angermeier and Matthew R. Winston 1999. Characterizing Fish Community Diversity Across Virginia Landscapes: Prerequisite for Conservation. Ecological Applications 9:335-349. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(1999)009[0335:CFCDAV]2.0.CO;2en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.2307/2641189en
dc.identifier.issn1051-0761en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/46857en
dc.identifier.urlhttp://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/1051-0761%281999%29009%5B0335%3ACFCDAV%5D2.0.CO%3B2en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherEcological Society of Americaen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectbiological conservationen
dc.subjectcommunity typesen
dc.subjectecological compositionen
dc.subjectfishen
dc.subjectcommunitiesen
dc.subjectgeographic correlatesen
dc.subjectregional diversityen
dc.subjectscale effectsen
dc.subjectspecies compositionen
dc.subjectfresh-water fishesen
dc.subjectaquatic biodiversityen
dc.subjectbiological diversityen
dc.subjectbioticen
dc.subjectinteractionsen
dc.subjectecosystem approachen
dc.subjectwisconsin streamsen
dc.subjecthabitat gradientsen
dc.subjectecologyen
dc.subjectassemblagesen
dc.subjectpatternsen
dc.titleCharacterizing Fish Community Diversity Across Virginia Landscapes: Prerequisite for Conservationen
dc.title.serialEcological Applicationsen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden

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