Dams destabilize river food webs: Lessons from the Grand Canyon

[Staff]

Dams destabilize river food webs: Lessons from the Grand Canyon
Public release date: 20-Aug-2013
Contact: Lori M Quillen
EurekAlert

Dams destabilize river food webs: Lessons from the Grand Canyon
excerpt from above:

Managing fish in human-altered rivers is a challenge because their food webs are sensitive to environmental disturbance. So reports a new study in the journal Ecological Monographs, based on an exhaustive three-year analysis of the Colorado River in Glen and Grand Canyons.

Food webs are used to map feeding relationships. By describing the structure of these webs, scientists can predict how plants and animals living in an ecosystem will respond to change. Coauthor Dr. Emma Rosi-Marshall, an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, comments, "Given the degraded state of the world's rivers, insight into food webs is essential to conserving endangered animals, improving water quality, and managing productive fisheries."

The project – which relied on a team of more than 10 researchers from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Montana State University, Idaho State University, University of Wyoming, U.S. Geological Survey, and Loyola University of Chicago – assessed six sites on the Colorado River, many so remote they required...