<i>Abstract.</i>—Scale influences the detection of relationships between landscape alterations and stream fishes and therefore has strong implications for conservation planning and implementation. This is especially true in riverscapes because terrestrial landscapes drain into riverscapes in a manner that can be measured at multiple scales. Two commonly employed scales in riverscape ecology and conservation include local catchment (i.e., the area of land draining directly into a segment of stream between two confluences) and network catchment (i.e., the total area of upstream land). We used a multispecies extension of species distribution modeling (i.e., gradient forest) to describe relationships between landscape alterations (measured at local catchment and network catchment scales) and stream fish occurrence patterns in portions of the Mississippi and Tennessee River basins in western Tennessee, USA. Landscape alterations included seven urban or agricultural classes, and densities of roads, road crossings, dams, human population, mines, and confined animal feeding operations. At the network catchment scale, the most influential landscape alterations affecting fish distributions were cultivated crops and pasture/hay land uses, but at the local catchment scale, open-space development, human population density, and road density were most important for describing multispecies fish distributions. Despite these differences, gradient forest model performance measured as explained variation at the species level was consistent between local catchment and network catchment scales. Furthermore, when predictions for unsampled stream segments were mapped across the region, both scales produced consistent patterns in fish assemblages affected by low, medium, and high development or cultivated crops. Our results provide direction to conservation practitioners by identifying regions where limited resources might be allocated to increase efficiencies within two highly altered and taxonomically diverse riverscapes. The framework described here provides a case study for application of new statistical innovations to address conservation challenges and can be used in other landscapes and riverscapes to identify locations where management efforts might be best allocated.
Better boundaries: identifying the upper extent of fish distributions in forested streams using eDNA and electrofishing
