Effects of land cover on sediment regime and fish assemblage structure in four southern Appalachian streams

Abstract

SUMMARY 1. We examined the relationship between catchment land cover, sediment regime and fish assemblage structure in four small streams in the upper Little Tennessee River basin of North Carolina. Study streams drained similar sized catchments (17–31 km 2) with different fractions of non‐forested land cover. Non‐forested land cover was <3% in two ‘reference’ streams, whereas it was 13 and 22% in two ‘disturbed’ streams. Land cover data were compared with sediment transport data (suspended and bedload), benthic habitat data (embeddedness, substratum composition and coverage of fines) and fishes collected in autumn 1997. 2. Suspended sediment concentration was significantly higher in disturbed streams during both baseflow and stormflow. During baseflow disturbed streams nearly always exceeded 10 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU), whereas reference streams never exceeded this threshold. The difference in suspended sediment concentration between reference and disturbed streams was more consistent at baseflow than at stormflow. Therefore, baseflow turbidity may be a useful indicator of potential stream degradation. 3. Disturbed sites had five‐ to nine‐fold more bedload transport than reference sites. Both embeddedness and streambed instability increased with increasing non‐forested land cover. 4. Relative abundance of fishes requiring clean cobble/gravel substratum for spawning was lower in disturbed streams, whereas relative abundance of mound‐building cyprinids, their nest associates and fishes that excavate nests in soft sediments (centrarchids) was higher. Relative abundance of fishes spawning in benthic crevices and gravel (BC + G) declined as the proportion of non‐forested land cover increased. This study supports growing evidence that human‐induced sedimentation alters stream fish assemblages.