On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations

Murray-Stoker, David

doi:10.24072/pcjournal.52

Ecology

On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations

Murray-Stoker, David ¹

¹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2, Canada

10.24072/pcjournal.52 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 1 (2021), article no. e52.

Get full text PDF Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI

Abstract

Swan and Brown (2017) recently addressed the effects of restoration on stream communities under the meta-community framework. Using a combination of headwater and mainstem streams, Swan and Brown (2017) evaluated how position within a stream network affected the outcome of restoration on invertebrate communities. Ostensibly, their hypotheses were partially supported as restoration had stronger effects in headwater streams: invertebrate taxonomic richness was increased and temporal variability decreased in restored reaches; however, these results were not consistent upon closer scrutiny for both the original paper (Swan and Brown 2017) and the later erratum (Swan and Brown 2018). Here, I provide a secondary analysis of the data, with hypotheses and interpretations in the context of stream, meta-community, and restoration ecology. Swan and Brown (2017, 2018) evaluated the effect of restoration on sites receiving various combinations of in-channel manipulation and riparian reforestation treatments. Given the difference in the relative importance of environmental filtering and dispersal between headwaters and mainstems and the structure of river networks, I contend that different restoration treatments have differential effects between headwaters and mainstems. I hypothesized in-channel manipulations would have more consistent effects between headwaters and mainstems compared to riparian reforestation, and I used this hypothesis to guide site selection in the re-analysis. I then compared results from the re-analysis to those presented by Swan and Brown (2017, 2018). I did not find any effects of restoration on local diversity, spatial dissimilarity, or temporal variability, let alone differential effects of restoration between headwaters and mainstems; these results are contrary Swan and Brown (2017, 2018), who reported that restoration increased taxonomic richness, increased spatial dissimilarity, and decreased temporal variability in restored headwater streams. I demonstrate further that the statistical tests conducted by Swan and Brown (2017, 2018) were invalid and, therefore, recommend the use of the results presented here. More broadly, I suggest, in agreement with Swan and Brown (2017, 2018) and a growing body of research, that river and stream restoration will likely have greater success if a regional approach is taken to designing and implementing restoration projects.

Published online: 2021-12-01

DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.52
Author's affiliations:

Murray-Stoker, David ¹

¹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2, Canada

@article{10_24072_pcjournal_52,
     author = {Murray-Stoker, David},
     title = {On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations},
     journal = {Peer Community Journal},
     eid = {e52},
     publisher = {Peer Community In},
     volume = {1},
     year = {2021},
     doi = {10.24072/pcjournal.52},
     url = {https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.52/}
}

TY  - JOUR
TI  - On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations
JO  - Peer Community Journal
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021///
VL  - 1
PB  - Peer Community In
UR  - https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.52/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.52
DO  - 10.24072/pcjournal.52
ID  - 10_24072_pcjournal_52
ER  -

%0 Journal Article
%T On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations
%J Peer Community Journal
%D 2021
%V 1
%I Peer Community In
%U https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.52
%R 10.24072/pcjournal.52
%F 10_24072_pcjournal_52

Murray-Stoker, David. On the efficacy of restoration in stream networks: comments, critiques, and prospective recommendations. Peer Community Journal, Volume 1 (2021), article  no. e52. doi : 10.24072/pcjournal.52. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.52/

Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI : 10.24072/pci.ecology.100052

References
Cited by

[1] Altermatt, F. Diversity in riverine metacommunities: a network perspective, Aquatic Ecology, Volume 47 (2013) no. 3, pp. 365-377 | Article

[2] Anderson, M. J.; Ellingsen, K. E.; McArdle, B. H. Multivariate dispersion as a measure of beta diversity, Ecology Letters, Volume 9 (2006) no. 6, pp. 683-693 | Article

[3] Bernhardt, E. S.; Palmer, M. A. River restoration: the fuzzy logic of repairing reaches to reverse catchment scale degradation, Ecological Applications, Volume 21 (2011) no. 6, pp. 1926-1931 | Article

[4] Booth, D. B.; Roy, A. H.; Smith, B.; Capps, K. A. Global perspectives on the urban stream syndrome, Freshwater Science, Volume 35 (2016) no. 1, pp. 412-420 | Article

[5] Campbell Grant, E. H.; Lowe, W. H.; Fagan, W. F. Living in the branches: population dynamics and ecological processes in dendritic networks, Ecology Letters, Volume 10 (2007) no. 2, pp. 165-175 | Article

[6] Cohen, J. Eta-Squared and Partial Eta-Squared in Fixed Factor Anova Designs, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Volume 33 (1973) no. 1, pp. 107-112 | Article

[7] Collins, K. E.; Doscher, C.; Rennie, H. G.; Ross, J. G. The Effectiveness of Riparian ‘Restoration’ on Water Quality—A Case Study of Lowland Streams in Canterbury, New Zealand, Restoration Ecology, Volume 21 (2013) no. 1, pp. 40-48 | Article

[8] Downes, B. J.; Lancaster, J.; Glaister, A.; Bovill, W. D. A fresh approach reveals how dispersal shapes metacommunity structure in a human‐altered landscape, Journal of Applied Ecology, Volume 54 (2017) no. 2, pp. 588-598 | Article

[9] Heino, J. Does dispersal ability affect the relative importance of environmental control and spatial structuring of littoral macroinvertebrate communities?, Oecologia, Volume 171 (2013) no. 4, pp. 971-980 | Article

[10] Heino, J.; Melo, A. S.; Siqueira, T.; Soininen, J.; Valanko, S.; Bini, L. M. Metacommunity organisation, spatial extent and dispersal in aquatic systems: patterns, processes and prospects, Freshwater Biology, Volume 60 (2015) no. 5, pp. 845-869 | Article

[11] Heino, J.; Muotka, T.; Paavola, R. Determinants of macroinvertebrate diversity in headwater streams: regional and local influences, Journal of Animal Ecology, Volume 72 (2003) no. 3, pp. 425-434 | Article

[12] Lake, P. S.; Bond, N.; Reich, P. Linking ecological theory with stream restoration, Freshwater Biology, Volume 52 (2007) no. 4, pp. 597-615 | Article

[13] Leibold, M. A.; Holyoak, M.; Mouquet, N.; Amarasekare, P.; Chase, J. M.; Hoopes, M. F.; Holt, R. D.; Shurin, J. B.; Law, R.; Tilman, D.; Loreau, M.; Gonzalez, A. The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology, Ecology Letters, Volume 7 (2004) no. 7, pp. 601-613 | Article

[14] Louhi, P.; Mykrä, H.; Paavola, R.; Huusko, A.; Vehanen, T.; Mäki-Petäys, A.; Muotka, T. Twenty years of stream restoration in Finland: little response by benthic macroinvertebrate communities, Ecological Applications, Volume 21 (2011) no. 6, pp. 1950-1961 | Article

[15] Miller, S. W.; Budy, P.; Schmidt, J. C. Quantifying Macroinvertebrate Responses to In-Stream Habitat Restoration: Applications of Meta-Analysis to River Restoration, Restoration Ecology, Volume 18 (2010) no. 1, pp. 8-19 | Article

[16] Muotka, T.; Syrjänen, J. Changes in habitat structure, benthic invertebrate diversity, trout populations and ecosystem processes in restored forest streams: a boreal perspective, Freshwater Biology, Volume 52 (2007) no. 4, pp. 724-737 | Article

[17] Oksanen et al., vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package version 2.5-4. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan, (2019)

[18] Orzetti, L. L.; Jones, R. C.; Murphy, R. F. Stream Condition in Piedmont Streams with Restored Riparian Buffers in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed1, JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Volume 46 (2010) no. 3, pp. 473-485 | Article

[19] Palmer, M. A.; Menninger, H. L.; Bernhardt, E. River restoration, habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity: a failure of theory or practice?, Freshwater Biology, Volume 55 (2010), pp. 205-222 | Article

[20] Palmer, M. A.; Hondula, K. L.; Koch, B. J. Ecological Restoration of Streams and Rivers: Shifting Strategies and Shifting Goals, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Volume 45 (2014) no. 1, pp. 247-269 | Article

[21] Pinheiro J., ; Bates D., ; DebRoy S., ; Sarkar D., ; and R Core Team, nlme: Linear and Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models. R package version 3.1-139. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=nlme, (2019)

[22] Quinn, G. P.; Keough, M. J. Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists, Cambridge University Press, (2002) | Article

[23] R Development Core Team, R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://cran.r-project.org/, (2019)

[24] Rosi-Marshall, E. J.; Wallace, J. B. Invertebrate food webs along a stream resource gradient, Freshwater Biology, Volume 47 (2002) no. 1, pp. 129-141 | Article

[25] Shaw, R. G.; Mitchell-Olds, T. Anova for Unbalanced Data: An Overview, Ecology, Volume 74 (1993) no. 6, pp. 1638-1645 | Article

[26] Smith, R. F.; Venugopal, P. D.; Baker, M. E.; Lamp, W. O. Habitat filtering and adult dispersal determine the taxonomic composition of stream insects in an urbanizing landscape, Freshwater Biology, Volume 60 (2015) no. 9, pp. 1740-1754 | Article

[27] Sundermann, A.; Stoll, S.; Haase, P. River restoration success depends on the species pool of the immediate surroundings, Ecological Applications, Volume 21 (2011) no. 6, pp. 1962-1971 | Article

[28] Swan, C. M.; Brown, B. L. Metacommunity theory meets restoration: isolation may mediate how ecological communities respond to stream restoration, Ecological Applications, Volume 27 (2017) no. 7, pp. 2209-2219 | Article

[29] Swan, C.; Brown, B. Erratum for: Metacommunity theory meets restoration: isolation may mediate how ecological communities respond to stream restoration, Ecological Applications, Volume 28 (2018) no. 5, pp. 1370-1371 | Article

[30] Tonkin, J. D.; Stoll, S.; Sundermann, A.; Haase, P. Dispersal distance and the pool of taxa, but not barriers, determine the colonisation of restored river reaches by benthic invertebrates, Freshwater Biology, Volume 59 (2014) no. 9, pp. 1843-1855 | Article

[31] Vannote, R. L.; Minshall, G. W.; Cummins, K. W.; Sedell, J. R.; Cushing, C. E. The River Continuum Concept, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Volume 37 (1980) no. 1, pp. 130-137 | Article

[32] Wahl, C. M.; Neils, A.; Hooper, D. Impacts of land use at the catchment scale constrain the habitat benefits of stream riparian buffers, Freshwater Biology, Volume 58 (2013), pp. 2310-2324 | Article

[33] Zuur, A. F.; Ieno, E. N.; Elphick, C. S. A protocol for data exploration to avoid common statistical problems, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Volume 1 (2009) no. 1, pp. 3-14 | Article

Cited by Sources: