Event Title

Concurrent Sessions A: Passage Effectiveness Monitoring in Small Streams II - Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Culvert Replacement Program – An Approach Based on Sampling the Distribution and Abundance of Aquatic Organisms

Location

Construction & Engineering Hall, Oregon State University

Start Date

27-6-2013 2:30 PM

End Date

27-6-2013 2:50 PM

Description

Restoration of aquatic organism passage at road-stream crossings is a national priority on public lands. Recognizing the importance of biological and geomorphic connectivity in streams, the U.S. Forest Service began a program of replacing older road culverts with culverts built to a stream-simulation design standard. As the number and scope of restoration efforts increase, there is a corresponding need for approaches that provide a programmatic perspective on effectiveness (i.e., not projects, but collections of projects, or programs). To address this need, we implemented an interagency effort in 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of a culvert replacement program for aquatic organisms on the Siuslaw National Forest on the central Oregon coast. We sampled over 400 sites in streams across the Forest representing a range of passage conditions: natural stream, passage-impaired, and passage-restored crossings. We evaluated the effects of these passage conditions by sampling for species presence within a clustered sampling design that addressed nearly all of the replaced crossings on the Forest. From this, we modeled the probability of occupancy for multiple species in relation to passage conditions and other landscape covariates hypothesized to influence presence. Our statistical methods account for variability in abundance, the probability of capturing individuals given they were present, and the spatial dependence resulting from directional stream-flow and network adjacency. We discuss the outcome of this investigation in terms of aquatic organism passage as well as merits and limitations of the sampling and statistical modeling approaches.

Comments

Nathan Chelgren is an Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey –Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center in Corvallis, Oregon. Nate received his B.S. degree from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and M.S. degree from Oregon State University. His research interests are in conservation, spatial issues in ecology and statistical estimation of wildlife and fish demography.

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Jun 27th, 2:30 PM Jun 27th, 2:50 PM

Concurrent Sessions A: Passage Effectiveness Monitoring in Small Streams II - Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Culvert Replacement Program – An Approach Based on Sampling the Distribution and Abundance of Aquatic Organisms

Construction & Engineering Hall, Oregon State University

Restoration of aquatic organism passage at road-stream crossings is a national priority on public lands. Recognizing the importance of biological and geomorphic connectivity in streams, the U.S. Forest Service began a program of replacing older road culverts with culverts built to a stream-simulation design standard. As the number and scope of restoration efforts increase, there is a corresponding need for approaches that provide a programmatic perspective on effectiveness (i.e., not projects, but collections of projects, or programs). To address this need, we implemented an interagency effort in 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of a culvert replacement program for aquatic organisms on the Siuslaw National Forest on the central Oregon coast. We sampled over 400 sites in streams across the Forest representing a range of passage conditions: natural stream, passage-impaired, and passage-restored crossings. We evaluated the effects of these passage conditions by sampling for species presence within a clustered sampling design that addressed nearly all of the replaced crossings on the Forest. From this, we modeled the probability of occupancy for multiple species in relation to passage conditions and other landscape covariates hypothesized to influence presence. Our statistical methods account for variability in abundance, the probability of capturing individuals given they were present, and the spatial dependence resulting from directional stream-flow and network adjacency. We discuss the outcome of this investigation in terms of aquatic organism passage as well as merits and limitations of the sampling and statistical modeling approaches.