BearWorks MSU Graduate Theses Summer 2018 Long-Term Trends of Stream Fish Community Assemblages in Southern Missouri with Contemporary Land Use Impacts Stephanie Marie Sickler Missouri State University, [email protected] As with any intellectual project, the content and views expressed in this thesis may be considered objectionable by some readers. However, this student-scholar’s work has been judged to have academic value by the student’s thesis committee members trained in the discipline. The content and views expressed in this thesis are those of the student-scholar and are not endorsed by Missouri State University, its Graduate College, or its employees. Follow this and additional works at: https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses Part of the Biology Commons, and the Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons Recommended Citation Sickler, Stephanie Marie, "Long-Term Trends of Stream Fish Community Assemblages in Southern Missouri with Contemporary Land Use Impacts" (2018). 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LONG-TERM TRENDS OF STREAM FISH COMMUNITY ASSEMBLAGES IN SOUTHERN MISSOURI WITH CONTEMPORARY LAND USE IMPACTS A Masters Thesis Presented to The Graduate College of Missouri State University TEMPLATE In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science, Biology By Stephanie Marie Sickler August 2018 Copyright 2018 by Stephanie Marie Sickler ii LONG-TERM TRENDS OF STREAM FISH COMMUNITY ASSEMBLAGES IN SOUTHERN MISSOURI WITH CONTEMPORARY LAND USE IMPACTS Biology Missouri State University, August 2018 Master of Biology Stephanie Marie Sickler ABSTRACT Stream fish communities in the Ozarks are structured via a number of different mechanisms, including basin, stream size, and human land use. The purpose of this study was to understand the structuring mechanisms of stream fish communities in southern Missouri. I compiled 48 years of historical fish collections performed by the Ichthyology class at Missouri State University consisting of 140 sites. I resampled 45 of these sites in summer of 2016. First, I tested whether communities are different between basins and stream size. Next, I tested associations of land use at three spatial scales to local fish communities. Last, I used historical collections to determine occupancy of species through time. Contemporary fish communities were used to answer basin, stream size, and land use structuring questions. Bray-Curtis dissimilarities demonstrated that communities in the modern data were different between basin, but not different in relation to stream size. I used Bray-Curtis again to calculate dissimilarity of land use composition at each spatial scale, then compared that to the communities with Mantel tests. Mantel tests showed that differences in land use were associated with differences in fish communities at all three spatial scales. Historical data were used to create logistic regressions for occupancy of each species to determine if presence is increasing or decreasing. Logistic regressions showed many species in decline, especially darters and minnows. This points to a need to more fully understand how fish communities in the Ozarks are impacted by human activities. KEYWORDS: fish, land use, communities, agriculture, urbanization, spatial scale This abstract is approved as to form and content _______________________________ Sean P. Maher, PhD Chairperson, Advisory Committee Missouri State University iii LONG-TERM TRENDS OF STREAM FISH COMMUNITY ASSEMBLAGES IN SOUTHERN MISSOURI WITH CONTEMPORARY LAND USE IMPACTS By Stephanie Marie Sickler A Masters Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College Of Missouri State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science, Biology August 2018 Approved: _______________________________________ (type committee Chairperson’s name here) _______________________________________ (type committee member’s name here) _______________________________________ (type committee member’s name here) _______________________________________ Julie Masterson, PhD: Dean, Graduate College In the interest of academic freedom and the principle of free speech, approval of this thesis indicates the format is acceptable and meets the academic criteria for the discipline as determined by the faculty that constitute the thesis committee. The content and views expressed in this thesis are those of the student- scholar and are not endorsed by Missouri State University, its Graduate College, or its employees. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Sean Maher, for his invaluable assistance with my graduate career and for putting up with having a fish person in his lab. Special thanks to my committee members, Dr. Deb Finn and Dr. Bob Pavlowsky, for their input and assistance. I would also like to thank Dr. Dan Beckman for getting me started on my graduate career and giving me the opportunity to do this research (and for letting me play with Rosie). I would like to thank my field assistants, Sabrina Messick, Chris Davis, Toni Craven, and Brandi Silvey for tolerating me on long car rides and still working hard to help with catching fish. I also need to thank my labmates, Casey Adkins and Emily Beasley for helping me to debug code, and a special shout-out to Casey for dealing with my defense anxiety. Thanks to my family for being super supportive and excited, even though they have no idea what I actually do. I was going to dedicate this thesis to someone, but in the end, I just did it for the halibut. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Overview ..............................................................................................................................1 Contemporary Fish Communities and the Effects of Land Use in the Missouri Ozarks .....4 Introduction ..............................................................................................................4 Methods....................................................................................................................6 Results ....................................................................................................................11 Discussion ..............................................................................................................15 References ..............................................................................................................19 Long Term Trends in Fish Communities in Southern Missouri ........................................44 Introduction ............................................................................................................44 Methods..................................................................................................................47 Results ....................................................................................................................48 Discussion ..............................................................................................................52 References ..............................................................................................................58 Summary ............................................................................................................................74 Additional References ........................................................................................................76 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Site locations with basin and stream order. .........................................................23 Table 2. Species captured in each basin .............................................................................25 Table 3. Predominant land use at each spatial scale. .........................................................27 Table 4. Mean distance traveled each year and region sampled. .......................................63 Table 5. Year coefficients from the logistic regression for each species ...........................65 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Venn diagram of the effects of land use .............................................................29 Figure 2. Venn diagram of spatial scale land use effects ...................................................29 Figure 3. Site map ..............................................................................................................30 Figure 4. Site map of Springfield, MO ..............................................................................31 Figure 5. Stream order map ...............................................................................................32 Figure 6. NMDS by basin ..................................................................................................33 Figure 7. NMDS by stream order ......................................................................................34 Figure 8. NMDS of local scale land use ............................................................................35 Figure 9. NMDS of riparian scale land use........................................................................36 Figure 10. NMDS of catchment scale land use ..................................................................37 Figure 11. Community NMDS vs local scale NMDS........................................................38