The influence of past land use on the present-day diversity of stream invertebrates and fish was investigated by comparing watersheds with different land-use history. Whole watershed land use in the 1950s was the best predictor of present-day diversity, whereas riparian land use and watershed land use in the 1990s were comparatively poor indicators. Our findings indicate that past land-use acti...

This study was conducted to assess the removal of groundwater nitrate (NOa-) in different soil drainage classes within three riparian forests located in Rhode Island. A solution of NOa-and a conservative tracer [either bromide (Br-) or chloride (CI-)] was applied in growing and the dormant seasons to trenches upgradient of wetland locations with hydric soils (poorly and very poorly drained soil...

Vegetative buffer strips are being widely promoted as an effective technique to protect rivers and streams from the negative impacts of adjacent land uses including forestry and agriculture. An extensive review of the literature revealed that despite the intuitive appeal of buffer strips, data demonstrating their efficacy is highly variable and most studies demonstrating significant nutrient re...

Grant, Gordon. 1988. The RAPID technique: a new method for evaluating downstream effects of forest practices on riparian zones. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-220. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 36 p. The RAPID (riparian aerial photographic inventory of disturbance) technique is a method for using measurements made on aerial photograph...

2 Assistant Professor of Fisheries, Associate Professor of Fisheries, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon; and Postdoctoral Research Associate, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn. Abstract: Retention of particulate and dissolved nutrients in streams is a major determinant of food availability to stream bio...

Many species of wildlife depend on riparian habitats for various life-history functions (e.g., breeding, foraging, overwintering). Although this unique habitat is critical for many species, delineations of riparian zones and buffers for various taxa are lacking. Typically when buffer zones are determined to mitigate edge effects, they are based on criteria that protect aquatic resources alone a...

Invading species often are close relatives, and therefore share many characteristics as a consequence of their common ancestry. This tends to confound studies of invasions, since many irrelevant characteristics are likely to be correlated with a species’ geographic origin (alien or native). We address this problem by using phylogenetically independent comparisons to investigate the habitat char...

In northeastern Austria, marshlands have been turned into the most productive arable land of the country. As a result, most headwater streams show structurally degraded channels, lacking riparian buff er zones, which are heavily loaded with nutrients from the surrounding crop fi elds. Th e present study examines whether longitudinally restricted riparian forest buff ers can enhance the in-strea...

Riparian vegetation research has traditionally focused on channel-related processes because riparian areas are situated on the edge of aquatic ecosystems and are therefore greatly affected by the flow regime of streams and rivers. However, due to their low topographic position in the landscape, riparian areas receive significant inputs of water and nutrients from uplands. These inputs may be im...