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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Variations in Community Fish Production and Diversity Across the Appalachians: Implications for Climate Change

Myers, Bonnie J. E. 04 March 2014 (has links)
Climate change is considered a major threat to freshwater ecosystems through altering biodiversity, structure, and function. Having a thorough understanding of how diverse ecosystems respond to temperature change is vital to ecosystem management and conservation. During summer 2012, I quantified fish biomass, somatic growth, secondary production, and habitat data for fish communities in 25 Appalachian streams from Vermont to North Carolina. Multiple statistical tests were conducted to determine the relationship between community fish production and air and water temperature, species thermal guild production and air and water temperature, and the relationship between community fish production and diversity. Community fish production estimates ranged from 0.15 to 6.79 g m-2 yr-1 and community P/B ratios ranged from 0.21 to 1.07. No significant differences existed between mean community production estimates at the cold-water, cool-water, warm-water, and extreme northern sites (P=0.19), but P/B ratios in the extreme northern streams were statistically higher than mean community P/B in cold- and cool-water streams in the southern Appalachians (P=0.002). Water temperatures had a positive effect on community fish production (P=0.01) while air temperatures did not (P=0.10). Both air and water temperatures were significant in predicting whether community production would be dominated by cold-water or cool-water fish (P=0.001, P<0.0001, respectively). Community fish production was significantly, positively related to species richness (R2=0.38, P=0.001) and was one of the highest correlates of community production (R2=0.52). As climate change alters freshwater ecosystems, fish communities may transform by means of shifting fish abundance, biomass, and production among species ultimately affecting ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity. / Master of Science

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