Assessing the Sustainability and Biological Integrity of Water Resources Using Fish Communities

Thomas P. Simon

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780849340079
• eBook ISBN: 9781000141382
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book examines the application of fish community characteristics to evaluate the sustainability and biological integrity of freshwaters. Topics include perspectives on use of fish communities as environmental indicators in program development, collaboration, and partnership forming; influence of specific taxa on assessment of the IBI; regional applications for areas where the IBI had not previously been developed; and specific applications of the IBI developed for coldwater streams, inland lakes, Great Lakes, reservoirs, and tailwaters.

Section II

Guild and Metrics Determination

6 Assessment of Balon’s Reproductive Guilds with Application to Midwestern North American Freshwater Fishes

Thomas P. Simon

CONTENTS

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Background

6.3 Reproductive Guild Placement of Midwestern North American Fishes

6.3.1 A. Nonguarders

6.3.1.1 Open Substratum Spawners (A.1)

6.3.1.2 Brood Hiders (A.2)

6.3.2 B. Guarders

6.3.2.1 Substratum Choosers (B.1)

6.3.2.2 Nest Spawners (B.2)

6.3.3 C. Bearers

6.3.3.1 External Bearers (C.1)

6.3.3.2 Internal Bearers (C.2)

6.4 Discussion

6.5 Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Similarity in evolutionary peaks and patterns in fishes enabled Balon (1975; 1981; 1985) to develop a framework for classifying reproductive styles. Balon’s concept built on Kryzhanovsky’s (1949) reasoning that “adaptations of fishes for spawning and development reflect not only the essential ecological factors of the embryonic period, but also the essential factors of all the other intervals of life.” This reproductive guild classification was based mainly on form and function in early developmental intervals, on preferred spawning grounds, and on features of reproductive behavior. The difficulty with such a system is that reproductive behavior was well known for less than 2% of the 20,000 known species of fish (Breder and Rosen, 1966), early life history of fishes were imprecisely known representing less than 1% of the known species of fish (Simon, 1986), and, by Balon’s own admission, the guild concept was a preliminary proposal reviewing the current knowledge at that time (Balon, 1975).

The present study examines the proper placement of midwestern North American species. The reproductive guild classification is becoming increasingly important as researchers develop alternative characteristics or “metrics” for evaluating North American stream fishes. The Index of Biotic Integrity (Karr et al., 1986) is an important tool that has been developed for determining biological resource quality using multiple aspects of stream fish communities. Alternative metrics include reproductive attributes such as proportion of simple lithophils (Simon, 1991; 1992) or ratio of nest spawning minnows to broadcast spawning minnows (Goldstein et al., 1994). To develop these metrics, species are categorized into appropriate guilds. Inaccurate assessment of biological integrity of a stream reach would r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Reviewers
• Table of Contents
• Section I: Perspectives
• Section II: Guild and Metrics Determination
• Section III: Regional Applications of the IBI
• Section IV: Application to Freshwater Resource Types Other than Wadeable Warmwater Streams
• Section V: Data Validation
• Index