Brett B. Roper

An Analysis of Stream Habitat Conditions in Reference and Managed Watersheds on Some Federal Lands within the Columbia River Basin

Abstract The loss of both habitat quality and quantity for anadromous fish in the Columbia River basin has been identified as a major factor in the decline of many species and has been linked to a variety of land management activities. In this study, we compared stream reaches in watersheds representing both managed and reference conditions to determine whether we could detect differences in physical habitat variables. We divided stream habitat measures into three components: Stream banks, instream habitat (pools and pool depth), and stream substrate. We randomly sampled perennial streams within 261 sixth hydrologic unit code (HUC) stream reaches on federal lands in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The sample population represented stream reaches in 62 reference watersheds and 199 managed watersheds. An unbalanced, incomplete-block-design analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed on each of the habitat variables using geology type as the block effect and bank-full width, stream gradient, and av...

Stream Restoration: Is Fisheries Biology Enough?

Abstract The fisheries profession is playing a key role in planning and implementing stream restoration projects throughout the world. To date, however, few examples exist of effective stream restoration programs or projects. One of the primary reasons stream restoration projects have not succeeded has been that projects are implemented on a small-scale, site-specific basis. We suggest that stream restoration would have a greater chance of succeeding if planned and implemented at a watershed scale. To do this, stream restoration projects must be expanded beyond instream work to include modification of upslope and riparian conditions that causes stream habitats to decline. In addition, planning for stream restoration at the watershed scale must include other disciplines that better understand these upslope watershed processes.

Durability of Pacific Northwest Instream Structures Following Floods

Abstract The durability of 3,946 instream structures in 94 streams that had floods with return intervals exceeding 5 years were assessed. Overall structure durability (defined as the degree to which a structure remained at its original location) was high; less than 20% of the sampled structures had been removed from the site of original placement. The magnitude of flood events had a significant effect on structure durability with higher magnitude floods reducing durability. Stream order also affected structure durability; structures in large streams were 20 times more likely to have been removed from the site of original placement than structures in small streams. Other conditions that affected structure durability included location of the structure within the stream channel, whether the structure was anchored or not, structure material, and upslope landslide frequency. Instream structures are most appropriate when used as short-term tools to improve degraded stream conditions while activities that caused...

A Comparison of the Performance and Compatibility of Protocols Used by Seven Monitoring Groups to Measure Stream Habitat in the Pacific Northwest

Abstract To comply with legal mandates, meet local management objectives, or both, many federal, state, and tribal organizations have monitoring groups that assess stream habitat at different scales. This myriad of groups has difficulty sharing data and scaling up stream habitat assessments to regional or national levels because of differences in their goals and data collection methods. To assess the performance of and potential for data sharing among monitoring groups, we compared measurements made by seven monitoring groups in 12 stream reaches in northeastern Oregon. We evaluated (1) the consistency (repeatability) of the measurements within each group, (2) the ability of the measurements to reveal environmental heterogeneity, (3) the compatibility of the measurements among monitoring groups, and (4) the relationships of the measurements to values determined from more intensive sampling (detailed measurements used as a standard for accuracy and precision in this study). Overall, we found that some stre...

Evaluating the Status and Trends of Physical Stream Habitat in Headwater Streams within the Interior Columbia River and Upper Missouri River Basins Using an Index Approach

Abstract Identifying the overall status of freshwater streams is an important step in evaluating effects of land management and prioritizing restoration activities. To address these needs, we developed an index of physical habitat condition for headwater streams based on physical stream habitat data (2003–2007) and evaluated the condition status of 217 reference streams and 934 managed streams in the interior Columbia River and upper Missouri River basins. We used data collected from reference reaches to generate this index, which consisted of eight commonly collected metrics used in stream habitat monitoring. We incorporated landscape and climatic covariates into multiple linear regression analyses to control for inherent differences in physical habitat attributes among reaches, and we scored the overall condition of reaches with index values ranging from 0 to 100. Our results indicated that the condition index score of physical habitat was significantly higher in reference reaches (mean ± SE = 47.1 ± 1....

Comparison of Midsummer Survival and Growth of Age-0 Hatchery Coho Salmon Held in Pools and Riffles

Abstract Habitat use studies have shown that juvenile coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch select pools over riffles. However, stream alterations have caused pool habitat to be lost or degraded throughout the Pacific Northwest. This study compared the growth and survival of age-0 coho salmon in riffles and pools in four streams in the South Umpqua River basin, Oregon. Hatchery coho salmon were stocked in block-netted riffles and pools. At the end of the study, the fish were recovered in order to measure their growth and survival in each habitat type. The survival of coho salmon was significantly higher (P 0.05) between pools and riffles. The condition factor of the coho salmon was significantly (P 0.05). The results of this study suggest that...

Do Beaver Dams Impede the Movement of Trout

Abstract Dams created by North American beavers Castor canadensis (hereafter, “beavers”) have numerous effects on stream habitat use by trout. Many of these changes to the stream are seen as positive, and many stream restoration projects seek either to reintroduce beavers or to mimic the habitat that they create. The extent to which beaver dams act as movement barriers to salmonids and whether successful dam passage differs among species are topics of frequent speculation and warrant further research. We investigated beaver dam passage by three trout species in two northern Utah streams. We captured 1,375 trout above and below 21 beaver dams and fitted them with PIT tags to establish whether fish passed the dams and to identify downstream and upstream passage; 187 individual trout were observed to make 481 passes of the 21 beaver dams. Native Bonneville Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii utah passed dams more frequently than nonnative Brown Trout Salmo trutta and nonnative Brook Trout Salvelinus fontina...

A Review of Bull Trout Habitat Associations and Exploratory Analyses of Patterns across the Interior Columbia River Basin

Abstract An understanding of habitat relationships for bull trout Salvelinus confluentus remains an important component for identifying future restoration, management, and recovery efforts. We examined past efforts through a comprehensive synthesis of peer-reviewed articles evaluating bull trout habitat relationships, and we used field data within classification tree analysis (CTA) to improve our understanding of the consistency of bull trout habitat use patterns. We performed CTA using reach-level habitat data collected from currently occupied stream networks (i.e., those within the current distribution of bull trout) and unoccupied stream networks where hierarchical filters (i.e., area and temperature) were met and from occupied areas where temperature criteria were exceeded. Results from the literature review demonstrated consistent results at the microhabitat and channel unit scales; indicated the importance of slow-velocity, deeper habitats; and, together with observed diel shifts, highlighted the im...

A Study of the Spawning Ecology and Early Life History Survival of Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

Abstract We completed a large-scale field experiment in four tributaries of the Logan River, Utah, where the largest metapopulation of imperiled Bonneville cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii utah persists. We documented the spatial and temporal distributions of spawners, quantified substrate use versus substrate availability, and evaluated differences in hatch and emergence fry success between and among sites in relation to habitat characteristics. We observed considerable variability in the timing, magnitude, and duration of spawning among study areas (streams), in part as a function of a variable, multipeaked hydrograph. Nevertheless, across study areas, >70% of redds were constructed on the final descending limb of the hydrograph. Despite large differences in the amount of spawning substrate available, Bonneville cutthroat trout utilized a narrow range of substrate and sizes (3–80 mm) similar to that utilized by other subspecies of cutthroat trout, albeit biased towards larger sizes. Water temperatur...

An evaluation of management objectives used to assess stream habitat conditions on federal lands within the Interior Columbia Basin.

We evaluated eight habitat objectives used by land management agencies within the Interior Columbia Basin to determine if the current riparian management objectives (RMOs) were representative of conditions found at reference sites, had values which differed significantly between reference and managed watersheds, and whether these RMOs could be consistently applied across the study area. We found that many of the reference reaches did not meet objectives such as wetted width-to-depth, percent undercut banks, number of pieces of large wood, and numbers of days exceeding 15°C. We also found no significant difference between randomly selected managed and reference reaches for four objectives: wetted width-todepth ratio, bank stability, percent undercut, and pool frequency. Finally we found that some RMO values differed among forest types. As a result of these findings, none of 726 reference or managed reaches we evaluated exceeded all objectives when applied to a site. We recommend that objectives, if adopted...