Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Response of juvenile steelhead trout to an instream habitat rehabilitation project in Meadow Creek, Oregon

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/sn00b112t

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  • Responses of juvenile steelhead trout to changes in stream habitat resulting from an instream habitat rehabilitation project in Meadow Creek, Oregon were measured from 1991 through 1992 and compared to pre-treatment data from 1987 through 1990. Sixty nine pool-forming, and 59 channel-stabilizing log structures were constructed by the U.S. Forest Service in a 3.7 km reach in 1990. A 20-year flood caused extensive modifications to the instream structures in May 1991. Pool habitat and large wood volume increased in the treatment and the two reference reaches but pool development was greater in the treatment reach compared to the two reference reaches. Summer rearing densities of juvenile steelhead were similar for the treatment and the two reference reaches at the reach scale. Summer rearing densities were lower in the post-treatment period compared to the pre-treatment period for the treatment and two reference reaches. Mean density of juvenile steelhead was higher in complex pools compared to non-complex pools throughout the study area. Mean density of juvenile steelhead was higher in pools associated with large wood from washed-out structures compared to pools associated with intact structures in the treatment reach. Changes in smolt production from the treatment reach following the rehabilitation project could not be determined due to trapping difficulties. Only three percent of the smolts emigrating from the basin overwintered in the treatment reach in 1992. Four life history patterns of juvenile steelhead were identified. Only one of the four life history patterns rears in the Meadow Creek basin until smolting. From these findings I conclude that the instream habitat rehabilitation project did not increase the abundance of juvenile steelhead or smolt production during the first two years after treatment. An extended drought and a 20-year flood may have been the dominant factors controlling abundance of juvenile steelhead over the study period. The Meadow Creek rehabilitation project may have limited success at increasing smolt production because it influences only one of four life history patterns of juvenile steelhead during the entire freshwater rearing phase.
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