TY - JOUR
T1 - Increased population size of fish in a lowland river following restoration of structural habitat
AU - Lyon, Jarod P.
AU - Bird, Tomas J.
AU - Kearns, Joanne
AU - Nicol, Simon
AU - Tonkin, Zeb
AU - Todd, Charles R.
AU - O'Mahony, Justin
AU - Hackett, Graeme
AU - Raymond, Scott
AU - Lieschke, Jason
AU - Kitchingman, Adrian
AU - Bradshaw, Corey J.A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was funded by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority project through The Living Murray Program. We thank R. Barker for assistance with project design. We thank all staff at the Arthur Rylah Institute, but in particular J. Mahony and J. MacKenzie. We also thank staff from New South Wales Fisheries, in particular N. Reynoldson, A. Vey, M. Rodgers, and M. Casey. Thanks to A. Boulton and D. McMaster for commenting on drafts. We dedicate this paper to the memory of our friend and collaborator, David Arnett of Yarrawonga. We did this work under NSW Fisheries Research Permits (F93/158(c)-6.0-9.0), FFG Research Permit (10005913), and animal ethics approval (07/23; 08/17; 11/02, 12/04).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Ecological Society of America.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - Most assessments of the effectiveness of river restoration are done at small spatial scales (<10 km) over short time frames (less than three years), potentially failing to capture large-scale mechanisms such as completion of life-history processes, changes to system productivity, or time lags of ecosystem responses. To test the hypothesis that populations of two species of large-bodied, piscivorous, native fishes would increase in response to large-scale structural habitat restoration (reintroduction of 4,450 pieces of coarse woody habitat into a 110-km reach of the Murray River, southeastern Australia), we collected annual catch, effort, length, and tagging data over seven years for Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii) and golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in a restored “intervention” reach and three neighboring “control” reaches. We supplemented mark–recapture data with telemetry and angler phone-in data to assess the potentially confounding influences of movement among sampled populations, heterogeneous detection rates, and population vital rates. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate changes in population parameters including immigration, emigration, and mortality rates. For Murray cod, we observed a threefold increase in abundance in the population within the intervention reach, while populations declined or fluctuated within the control reaches. Golden perch densities also increased twofold in the intervention reach. Our results indicate that restoring habitat heterogeneity by adding coarse woody habitats can increase the abundance of fish at a population scale in a large, lowland river. Successful restoration of poor-quality “sink” habitats for target species relies on connectivity with high-quality “source” habitats. We recommend that the analysis of restoration success across appropriately large spatial and temporal scales can help identify mechanisms and success rates of other restoration strategies such as restoring fish passage or delivering water for environmental outcomes.
AB - Most assessments of the effectiveness of river restoration are done at small spatial scales (<10 km) over short time frames (less than three years), potentially failing to capture large-scale mechanisms such as completion of life-history processes, changes to system productivity, or time lags of ecosystem responses. To test the hypothesis that populations of two species of large-bodied, piscivorous, native fishes would increase in response to large-scale structural habitat restoration (reintroduction of 4,450 pieces of coarse woody habitat into a 110-km reach of the Murray River, southeastern Australia), we collected annual catch, effort, length, and tagging data over seven years for Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii) and golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in a restored “intervention” reach and three neighboring “control” reaches. We supplemented mark–recapture data with telemetry and angler phone-in data to assess the potentially confounding influences of movement among sampled populations, heterogeneous detection rates, and population vital rates. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate changes in population parameters including immigration, emigration, and mortality rates. For Murray cod, we observed a threefold increase in abundance in the population within the intervention reach, while populations declined or fluctuated within the control reaches. Golden perch densities also increased twofold in the intervention reach. Our results indicate that restoring habitat heterogeneity by adding coarse woody habitats can increase the abundance of fish at a population scale in a large, lowland river. Successful restoration of poor-quality “sink” habitats for target species relies on connectivity with high-quality “source” habitats. We recommend that the analysis of restoration success across appropriately large spatial and temporal scales can help identify mechanisms and success rates of other restoration strategies such as restoring fish passage or delivering water for environmental outcomes.
KW - citizen science
KW - coarse woody habitat
KW - golden perch
KW - meta-population
KW - Murray cod
KW - resnagging
KW - scale
KW - stream restoration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066634056&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/increased-population-size-fish-lowland-river-following-restoration-structural-habitat
U2 - 10.1002/eap.1882
DO - 10.1002/eap.1882
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85066634056
SN - 1051-0761
VL - 29
SP - 1
EP - 11
JO - Ecological Applications
JF - Ecological Applications
IS - 4
M1 - e01882
ER -
