Project Title
Altered habitat structure at tributary confluences
Abstract
Rivers are often conceptualised as a continuum of environmental conditions from small headwater streams to large floodplain rivers. However, the rise of a landscape perspective in riverine ecology has emphasised the branching structure of rivers and the heterogeneous distribution of habitats and biological communities on multiple spatial scales. Tributaries are an obvious source of natural variation where they intersect another channel. The abrupt meeting of water and sediment from confluent channels modifies downstream channel morphology, resulting in altered physical habitat with likely consequences for stream biota. However, the effect of tributaries on stream habitat and biological communities is poorly understood. The regular occurrence of tributary confluences throughout river systems means that they are potentially important in structuring stream communities on a landscape scale. The objective of my study is to document possible differences in benthic macroinvertebrate communities and environmental conditions upstream and downstream of tributary confluences in cobble-bed streams, within the forested regions of the Acheron River catchment. This comparison includes (1) physical channel morphology and benthic habitat, (2) transported and stored organic matter and (3) seasonal flow conditions.
Supervisors
Prof. Ralph MacNally and Prof. Sam Lake
See also
Australian Centre for Biodiversity Analysis, Policy and Management
