MANHATTAN, KAN. — When engineers restore rivers, one Kansas State University professor hopes they’ll keep a smaller engineer in mind: the North American beaver.
Beavers are often called ecosystem engineers because they can radically alter stream …
“Of the 675 fish species found in southeastern waters, more than 25 percent are considered imperiled,” Donald J. Orth, the Thomas H. Jones Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environ…
The amount of water flowing in streams and rivers has been significantly altered in nearly 90 percent of waters that were assessed in a new nationwide USGS study. Flow alterations are a primary contributor to degraded river ecosystems and loss of n…
For more than 100 years, Hawaiian streams have been diverted to irrigate agricultural plantations. But, until now, the potential costs in terms of Hawaii’s endemic stream life were undocumented. A recent study reports drastic changes in stream communities below the diversion of a Maui stream. Below the diversion of Iao Stream, Maui; three macroinvertebrate groups (which include insects, crustaceans, and snails) disappear. Densities of other macroinvertebrate groups drop by 46 percent below the diversion. The changes in the macroinvertebrate community could have serious impacts on endemic fish that rely on them for food.