Debunking paradigms in estuarine fish species richness Adam Waugh - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Debunking paradigms in estuarine fish species richness Adam Waugh 1,2* , Michael Elliott 2 , Anita Franco 2 1. Environment Agency, Kingfisher House, Orton Way, Peterborough, PE2 5ZR 2. Institute of Estuarine & Coastal Studies, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK *Corresponding author: email: adam.waugh@environment- agency.gov.uk

Introduction Estuaries are important to us Estuaries are important to fish WFD classifications rely on species richness as key measure Indicators need to be independent 2

Present study Estuaries are complex environments but two paradigms are thought to pervade Species-area relationship Species-energy relationship Not yet tested on quality-controlled estuarine fish datasets 3

Present study – area 27 estuaries 2006-2015 144 sites 3,578 45m seine nets 114 species 4

Estuaries varied in every way Level one bullet Mean Mean Level two bullet site fluvial Size salinity flow • Level three bullet nSpp nSites nSamples (ha) Lat Long (psu) (m3/s) –Level four bullet 22 2 41 28 50.21 -5.04 7.63 0.35 Min »Level five bullet 35.3 5 133 5,818 52.29 -2.27 21.02 29.58 Mean 55 12 289 53,645 55.76 1.54 32.33 139.28 Max 10.1 3 68 12,195 1.50 2.11 7.29 36.63 SD 5

60 50 Species richness 40 30 20 Adur Alde & Ore Carrick Roads Inner Camel Conwy Dart Dee Esk (E) Exe Foryd Nay Humber Lune 10 Medway Milford Haven Inner Nyfer Orwell Poole Harbour Ribble Severn Southampton Water Stour Taw/Torridge Tees Teifi Thames Tweed Wyre 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Samples 6

EstuarySR obs SR max Estuary SR obs SR max Medway 23 24.3 Humber 48 50.4 Teifi 26 26.4 Exe 42 50.5 Esk(E) 22 27.9 Camel 55 60 Tweed 25 30.3 Dee 52 60.9 Tees 27 31.8 Poole Harbour 49 66.9 Taw/Torridge 32 32.1 Southampton Water 41 69 Alde & Ore 25 32.4 Dart 55 73.9 Lune 25 33 Wyre 29 34.4 Nyfer 25 34.9 Foryd Bay 36 36.6 Stour 36 38.5 Thames 34 40.2 Severn 27 41.1 Orwell 38 41.4 Conwy 37 41.6 Adur 31 43.1 Milford Haven Inner 34 44 Ribble 34 45.1 Carrick Roads Inner 45 45.9

60,000 HDE LDE 50,000 Waterbody Size (ha) 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 - 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Latitude (degrees N)

60 SACFOR Thames Humber 50 Sum 22815 12400 SppCnt 34 47 Species richness 40 A 2 4 C 1 1 30 ES 3 6 F 15 17 20 MM 12 13 MS 1 6 10 Humber Thames 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Samples 11

Acknowledgements Prof. Mike Elliott and Dr. Anita Franco at Hull University Environment Agency IFM And you