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FISH COMMUNITIES AND HUMAN DISTURBANCE IN THE ALBEMARLE-PAMLICO BASIN OF NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA
Citation:
Baca, R M. FISH COMMUNITIES AND HUMAN DISTURBANCE IN THE ALBEMARLE-PAMLICO BASIN OF NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA. Presented at Ecological Society of America Meeting, Snowbird, UT, August 6-10, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
This research project sets out to design and conduct an assessment of the long-term ecological consequences of alternative management choices. As the first project to be done at this scale using predictive ecological endpoints, we will seek to identify the appropriate components of such an analysis. We will use experience gained in the conduct of this BASE analysis to identify key research and data needs for address, to estimate timing, resource needs, etc., for future analyses. We will extend this analysis beyond previous and ongoing studies in two ways: by incorporating biological endpoints, primarily properties of fish communities, and by introducing the concept of sustainability of ecological state under future scenarios contrasted with the present state of those same ecological resources. Requirements that are identified during the course of this study will permit the recommendation of specific capabilities that should be incorporated in a general modeling system currently under development to support BASE and other environmental assessments. Finally, the analysis is intended to be of value for establishing environmental management choices that will be beneficial and those that would be detrimental to the sustainability of ecological resources of the Albemarle-Pamlico Basin.
Description:
Data on fish abundance, diversity, and habitat quality from the USGS and EPA were analyzed for patterns in the regional fish communities of the Albemarle-Pamlico drainage basin. The basin covers approximately 72,500 square kilometers and four physiographic provinces in Virginia and North Carolina, which includes the watersheds of the Chowan, Roanoke, Tar-Pamlico, and Neuse Rivers. The fish communities were analyzed using cluster analysis and various gradient analysis techniques. Cluster analysis was used to parse the data set prior to gradient analysis, as it seemed unlikely that environmental gradients would organize the fish communities over such a large and ecologically diverse area. Canonical correspondence analysis was then used to find patterns between human influences in the region and fish community structure. Measures of human influence, such as density of roads, density of human population, and land use characterization were used in addition to water quality measurements as explanatory variables in the canonical correspondence analysis. Since human disturbance in this region is very large due to extensive agriculture, measures of a variety of human influences may better explain patterns in the fish communities than water quality variables alone. This research is part of a larger research initiative at EPA modeling how fish populations in the Albemarle-Pamlico basin may respond to changes in land-use patterns by humans over the next 50 years, and provides initial empirical relations between regional patterns in fish and human populations for the model.