Ohio/Tennessee/Cumberland Aquatic Habitat Assessment Jeff Thomas, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Ohio/Tennessee/Cumberland Aquatic Habitat Assessment

Jeff Thomas, ORBFHP Emily Watson, SARP June 16, 2011

Background

• Exploring option to run TN/Cumberland and

Ohio River basin models together

– Save time and effort, increased expertise, greater scope for end product

• Do we loose model strength with broader

geographic region?

• Does it make sense biologically to combine

river basins?

Quick and Dirty Model

Landscape Predictor Data

• Natural and Anthropogenic
• Local vs. US Network vs. DS

Network vs. Regional Stream or Lake Response Data

• Environmental Data
• Fish Data
• Assemblage
• Abundance
• Presence-Absence
• Index of Biotic Integrity
• Community Metrics

Model Results

• Response variable predictions @

1:100K SLW scale

• Predictor variable importance

weightings

• Stressor-Response functions
• Estimates of model uncertainty

Post-Modeling Results

• Cumulative Natural Habitat

Quality Index (CHQI)

• Cumulative Anthropogenic

Stressor Index (CASI)

• CHQI and CASI accumulated

from 1:100K SLW up to HUC12.

INPUT OUTPUT

BOOSTED REGRESSION TREES

density of a species ata site * 10,000 sum of densities of the same species at all sites Relative Density total number of species fromall sites sum of the relative densities for all species at a site MICD

Modified Index of Centers of Diversity

• Scores sites based on highest abundance of rarest species

relative to all sites in the basin

• Model results can predict locations of biodiversity and tell

you the best sites for restoration/protection if you are interested in biodiversity

Relative Influence of Predictor Variables

SARP only model Vs. Combined model

Suggests that the combined model consistently provides lower MICD estimates among SARP catchments compared to SARP

• nly model

Note: on the log scale

SARP model’s ability to predict

Suggests that the SARP model is doing a decent job of estimating MICD in SARP, and has less bias (low or high) than the combined model

Impacts of separating

• How?

– Ecoregion – Political boundaries

• Are they regionally meaningful?

Freshwater Ecoregions

Omernick’s Level III Ecoregions

Omernik’s Level II Ecoregions

Bailey’s Ecoregions

Avg MICD Stream Order OH ORB TN/CU 1 6.9 6.6 (1205) 7.6 (158) 2 10.7 12.2 (1738) 8.6 (266) 3 17 15.2 (1528) 12.8 (326) 4 19.1 21 (821) 15.7 (150) 5 32.2 22 (351) 21.7 (46) 6 37.1 19.5 (266) 18.3 (8) 7 24 18.2 (140) 31 (1) 8 15 18 (404) 9 14.4 16.8 (64) Avg # Species (# Events)

MICD Refinement

MICD Refinement

• Use only 3-6 orders?
• Score as a % of max/order

Stream Order Max MICD 1 433 2 484 3 700 4 630 5 805 6 487 7 303 8 394 9 373