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RELATIONS OF STREAM FISH COMMUNITIES TO PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PARAMETERS AND LAND USE IN THE MISSISSIPPI ALLUVIAL PLAIN ECOREGION National Water-Quality Assessment Program Open-File Report 03-31 by Brian J. Caskey This document is available in pdf format:  OFR_03_31 (2.73 Mb)(Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) ABSTRACT Fish community, habitat, and basin assessments were conducted in the northern part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion following protocols set by the U.S. Geological Survey. The information collected was used to assess the relations between stream fish communities and land use. Seventy-seven fish species and one hybrid sunfish from 16 families were recorded in this study, although, historically, 160 fish species from 24 families have been recorded in the study area. In this study, the fish community sampling used only two sampling methods, where as the historical collections followed a variety of sampling methods. The differences between historical fish collections and this study could be due, in part, to differences in sampling methods and types (sizes) of streams sampled. Historically, wetlands accounted for more than 50 percent of the land use in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion. During this study, it was found that the dominant land use in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion was agriculture (about 82 percent), and about 6 percent of the wetlands remain. Multivariate procedures were used to draw inferences between the fish communities and land use. A TWINSPAN was run first of the percent relative abundance fish community data, and it showed that, based on the fish community data that the sites differed following a northern versus southern break. Then a correspondence analysis of the arsine transformed fish community data was run after partialling out four naturally occurring environmental parameters. The eigenvalue from this analysis was about 0.356; therefore, it was concluded that the sites were constrained to the first axis. Next, a canonical correspondence analysis was run using the arsine transformed fish community data and 18 selected environmental parameters after partialling out four naturally occurring environmental parameters. The canonical correspondence analysis showed that the correspondence analysis site scores were related to the percent of corn (r2 = -0.4769) and average channel width (r2 = 0.4607) along the first axis and related to the percent rice (r2 = -0.6720) and small grains (r2 = 0.4902) along the second axis. The findings from this analysis suggest that land use in Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion differ in the northern versus southern portions of the study area. Further analysis, Spearman rho correlations, showed that the percent of deciduous forest was correlated with Shannon diversity (rs = 0.4694), small grains were correlated to the average standard length of black bass (rs = 0.4515), and the percent corn was correlated to the number of intolerant taxa (rs = 0.5382), to the number of minnow taxa (rs = 0.4749), and to the relative abundance of insectivores (rs = 0.6114). Findings from the Spearman analysis support the idea that land use is related to fish communities in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion. The combination of the canonical correspondence analysis and Spearman rho correlations suggest that streams in the northern portion of the study area are typically small streams that are dominated by intolerant minnow species, while the land use is dominated by corn production. Streams are larger in the southern portion of the study area and dominated by a few tolerant species, and the land use is dominated by rice production. TABLE OF CONTENTSREVIEW OF LITERATURE ON FISH COMMUNITY ASSESSMENTS AND LAND-USE STUDIES METHODS AND MATERIALS Study Area, Site, and Reach Selection Habitat, Chemical, and Fish Community Assessment Basin Assessment Data Analyses RESULTS Habitat, Chemical, and Fish Community Assessment Basin Assessment Multivariate analysis Relation of environmental parameters to fish communities DISCUSSION WORKS CITED VITA FIGURES 1. Location of thirty-six fish community sampling sites in the study area, within the northern part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion 2. TWINSPAN analysis of fish communities at thirty sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 3. Correspondence analysis (CA) biplot, using the arsine fish data from thirty sites, while partialing for four naturally occurring environmental parameters 4. Correspondence analysis (CA) biplot, using the arsine fish data from twenty-nine sites, while partialing for four naturally occurring environmental parameters 5. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) biplot, using the arsine fish data and eighteen standardized environmental parameters from thirty sites, while partialing for four naturally occurring parameters 6. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) biplot, using the arsine fish data and eighteen standardized environmental parameters from twenty-nine sites, while partialing for four naturally occurring parameters TABLES 1. Historical species list of fish collected in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion 2. Location of the thirty-six fish community sampling sites, May to August 1998 3. Description of land-use parameters that were calculated for thirty-six drainage basins sampled in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 4. Twenty fish community metrics to be calculated using the fish community data from thirty sites in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion 5. Environmental parameters groups, subgroups, specific parameters, and unit of measures 6. Average habitat parameters calculated at each of the thirty-six sampling sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 7. Chemical parameters recorded prior to electrofishing at each of the thirty-six sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 8. Scientific and common names of fish collected from thirty-six sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998, listed in phylogenic order 9. Percent relative abundance of fish collected at thirty-six sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 10. Results of the ten species richness and composition fish community indices, from thirty-six sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion 11. Results of the three trophic composition and seven fish abundance and condition fish community indices, from thirty-six sites within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion 12. Basin parameters calculated for thirty-six sites sampled within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 13. Percent contribution by each crop type within thirty-six drainage basins of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 14. Percentage of urban land use, listed by type, for thirty-six drainage basins within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 15. Percentage of forest land use, listed by type, for thirty-six drainage basins within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 16. Percentage of agriculture land use, listed by type, for thirty-six drainage basins within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 17. Percentage of wetland land use, listed by type, for thirty-six drainage basins within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 18. Percentage of miscellaneous land use, listed by type, for thirty-six drainage basins within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion, 1998 19. Spearman rho correlations for significant relations between elevation and the physical environmental parameters 20. Spearman rho correlations for significant relations between elevation and the fish community metrics 21. Summary of correspondence analysis (CA) of fish communities data from thirty sites 22. Summary of correspondence analysis (CA) of fish communities data from twenty-nine sites 23. List of eighteen environmental parameters selected to be used in the canonical correspondences analysis (CCA) along with their associate surrogate parameters from Spearman rho correlations 24. Summary of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), from thirty sites 25. Correlations (r2) of the correspondence analysis (CA) site scores to the eighteen environmental parameters, for thirty sites 26. Summary of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), from twenty-nine sites 27. Correlations (r2) of the correspondence analysis (CA) site scores to the eighteen environmental parameters, for twenty-nine sites 28. Spearman rho correlations (rs) for significant relations between the twenty fish metrics and eighteen environmental parameters Water Resources of Mississippi |