Rainfall and river networks prove accurate predictors of fish bi...(le to identify 824 distinct sub-basins a...)

Date:5/9/2008

le to identify 824 distinct sub-basins and establish how the rivers within each sub-basin were linked together. Another set of data identified 433 different species of fish living in those sub-basins. A third set of data identified each regions average runoff, which is the amount of rainfall that ends up in rivers or streams as opposed to water that is soaked up by the ground.

The researchers combined all these data and came up with a computer model that accurately predicts how many different species of fish will inhabit any given sector of the river basin. Their research shows that the habitats richest in the diversity of species are areas where multiple streams are close to one another.

This will help identify which parts of a river basin are hot spots, meaning they have more species than others and therefore should receive special care, said Rodrguez-Iturbe, senior author of the paper.

To create their model for the Nature paper, the researchers disregarded the biological features of the fish in question -- for example, which species might be tenacious predators or which might be well-suited to take advantage of available food in the area. The model tracks how many species will thrive in a given area but does not predict which species. It is what is known as a neutral model and thus treats each fish equally.

The lead author of the paper is Rachata Muneepeerakul, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton who received his Ph.D. from the University in 2007. Co-authors are hydrologists Andrea Rinaldo and Enrico Bertuzzo of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, and Heather Lynch and William Fagan of the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland. The study was funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

The authors have combined sophisticated ecological theory and sophisticated hydrological theory, said Simon Levin, the George M. Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeto
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Contact: Teresa Riordan triordan@princeton.edu 609-258-9754 Princeton University, Engineering School Source:Eurekalert

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