Low-head dam fragmentation, habitat alteration, and invasive predators degrade a Western United States stream fish assemblage

Abstract

Dams fragment streams, alter hydrology and habitat, and facilitate establishment of nonnative species worldwide to the detriment of native biota. Understanding and mitigating these effects to conserve and restore stream fish assemblages has relied on short- and long-term datasets to assess acute and chronic change through time, craft management strategies, and measure remediation success. We used sampling records collected over a 29-year period (1993–2021) to examine likely causes of fish assemblage change in the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado, USA. Numerous low-head dams have reduced connectivity and altered flow, temperature, and habitat in the transition zone, a reach that historically supported rare and sensitive taxa valuable to regional biodiversity. We found diversity, distribution, and abundance of native species declined since the early 1990s, with formerly rare taxa extirpated and some common species becoming rare. Native taxa remained numerically dominant in warmer downstream reaches most affected by streamflow diversion but were incrementally reduced in richness and abundance upstream of low-head dams without fishways. Concurrently, nonnative Brown Trout Salmo trutta increased in distribution and abundance, dominating upstream reaches that receive cooler and more stable flows, and expanding into downstream reaches where they were formerly absent, with likely negative consequences for native fishes. In the absence of mitigation, these collective effects, plus recent wildfire disturbance and future water development, will continue to degrade stream fish assemblages in our study area, and worldwide, where resource managers face the often-competing interests of conserving native species, providing recreational fisheries, and meeting increasing water demands.