@article{e5def5160e814a1c8ea9b7f330ce5449,
title = "If a tree falls in the forest: terrestrial habitat loss predicts caddisfly (Insecta: Trichoptera) assemblages and functional feeding group biomass throughout rivers of the North-central United States",
abstract = "Context: Understanding the specific natural and anthropogenic drivers of aquatic insect assemblages and feeding ecology is critical to managing aquatic ecosystems. Utilizing the counts of benthic specimens found in most studies is suboptimal due to sampling difficulties, lack of taxonomic resolution, and the tacit assumption that specimens of all sizes are ecologically equivalent. These problems may be overcome by measuring the biomass of winged adults instead. Objectives: This study quantified the importance of natural and anthropogenic variables affecting adult caddisflies in the north-central United States in habitats ranging from designated wilderness to intense agriculture. Methods: Nearly 650 streams were sampled throughout a 1.2 million km2 area. The relative ability of 52 variables to predict (1) caddisfly species assemblages and (2) functional feeding group (FFG) biomass was assessed. Results: The percentage of intact habitat, particularly at the whole-watershed scale, was most effective at predicting both metrics. The biomass of all FFGs except filtering collectors, and that of 85% of species, decreased as intact habitat decreased. Assemblages of least disturbed streams, conversely, were primarily affected by gradient and width, and generally followed patterns of river continuity. In all streams, increasing stream temperatures associated with decreasing intact habitat led to decreasing species richness; whereas increasing temperatures associated with decreasing gradient or increasing width in least disturbed streams led to increasing species richness. Conclusions: Natural variables are important predictors of caddisfly assemblages in undisturbed streams; however, habitat loss overwhelms such variables throughout much of the north-central US, leading to declines in nearly all species.",
keywords = "Assemblage, Covariance, Disturbance, Freshwater, Land use, Stream",
author = "Houghton, {David C.} and DeWalt, {R. Edward}",
note = "Funding Information: We appreciate the efforts of all who have collected, sorted, and identified caddisflies from this large region over the last ~20 years, including Benjamin Albers, Geoffrey Archibald, Doug Bidlack, Roger Blahnik, Dean Blinn, Chris Bowyer, Kelsey Brakel, Kiralyn Brakel, Henrey Deese, Mikayla Dove, Lily Erickson, David Etnier, Christine Fenendael, Erin Flaherty, Erin Furmaga, Mark Galatowitsch, Hannah Goble, Kim Ha, Ralph Holzenthal, Robert Kintz, Kyler Kuzio, Ryan Lardner, Travis Ling, Faith Linton, Brooklyn Little, Caitlin Lowry, Connie Loruss, Emily Malcolm, Bilyana McLeod, Bridget O{\textquoteright}Leary, Joel Parker, Sally Petrella, Megan Phelps, Angie Pytel, David Ruiter, Sarah Salow, Logan Shoup, Karen Schultz, Mary Clare Smith, Erich Steger, Peter Thistleton, Shelby Tone, Sydney Tone, Eleanor Valle, Jeff Van Zant, Lydia Wassink, Daniel Wright, Mia Young, Jennifer Zaspel, and Jessica Zeglin. Permits to collect in the State Parks of MI and MN were provided by Alicia Selden (MIDNR) and Ed Quinn (MNDNR) respectively. Sampling of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park was conducted under permit SLBE-2014-SCI-0002, facilitated by Kevin Skerl, Chief of Natural Resources for the park. Permission to sample in the Huron Mountains of MI was provided by the Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation. Permission to sample at the Black River Ranch of MI was provided by the Black River Ranch Board of Directors. Permission to sample at Sarah Jane{\textquoteright}s Natural Area of MI was provided by John Bagley and Andrew Bacon of the Michigan Nature Association. Google Earth base maps were used following permission guidelines (https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines/attr-guide/ ). The valuable comments of Yong Cao and Christopher Heckel improved earlier versions of the manuscript. This is paper #25 of the G.H. Gordon BioStation Research Series. Funding Information: Primary funding for this research came from a US Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results Fellowship and Minnesota Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program grant to DCH, and the US Department of Interior (INT RD X-1-R-1) and National Science Foundation (DEB 09-18805 ARRA) grants to RED. Further support came from the Hillsdale College (HC) biology department, grants from the Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation, several HC LAUREATES grants to DCH and affiliated students, and a HC Faculty Summer Leave grant. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.",
year = "2021",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1007/s10980-021-01298-4",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "36",
pages = "3061--3078",
journal = "Landscape Ecology",
issn = "0921-2973",
publisher = "Springer",
number = "10",
}