SEES Fellows: A heads up view of aquatic ecosystem sustainability - understanding the terrestrial landscape scale impacts of urbanization on aquatic biota

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This project will assess the role of landscapes in maintaining and protecting aquatic resources while allowing for land development. The project will examine how patterns of stream fish and insect community composition relate to watershed-scale versus landscape-scale land-use patterns. Information about the biology of stream fish and insects (e.g., species life history traits, dispersal abilities, tolerances to poor habitat and pollution, etc.) will be used to develop metrics describing characteristics of urbanized landscapes that may lead to mortality or reduced fitness of stream organisms. This information will be used, together with existing community data and Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis of land-use patterns, to examine how land-use development scenarios impact the suitability of land acquisition strategies for conserving stream fish and insect communities. Incorporating land-use development models, and working in partnership with local government agencies, a decision-support system (DSS) will be developed to aid agency personnel in their efforts to acquire land for conservation purposes. Sustainable land-use development must take into account the trade-offs between conserving the function and diversity of stream ecosystems and promoting socio-economic benefits for residents. A balance among environmental, social, and economic goals is necessary to sustain healthy stream ecosystems in coupled human-environment systems. Research on the effects of land-use change on stream communities has typically focused on human activities at the watershed scale. This project will expand such research to include broader, landscape-scale perspectives. Results of the research will enable local government agency personnel to make more informed decisions about land acquisition for the purposes of habitat protection and conservation of biodiversity. This project will include participation of undergraduate students in the research and an outreach program to residents of urban areas communicating the ecology and conservation importance of stream fishes and insects. This project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. With SEES Fellows support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish themselves in an independent research career related to sustainability.