Biodiversity in Hudson River shore zones: influence of shoreline type and physical structure

The shore zones of the Hudson River, like those of many developed waterways, are highly varied, containing a mix of seminatural and highly engineered shores. Our goal was to document the biodiversity supported by different kinds of shore zones in the Hudson. We chose six common types of shore zones,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Aquatic sciences 2012-07, Vol.74 (3), p.597-610
Main Authors: Strayer, David L., Findlay, Stuart E. G., Miller, Daniel, Malcom, Heather M., Fischer, David T., Coote, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquatic ecology
Aquatic plants
Biodiversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Bulkheads
Community composition
Ecology
Estuaries
Freshwater
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Life Sciences
Marine & Freshwater Sciences
Oceanography
Plant species
Research Article
Riprap
Rivers
Shorelines
Shores
Waterways
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Summary:The shore zones of the Hudson River, like those of many developed waterways, are highly varied, containing a mix of seminatural and highly engineered shores. Our goal was to document the biodiversity supported by different kinds of shore zones in the Hudson. We chose six common types of shore zones, three of them “natural” (sand, unconsolidated rock, and bedrock), and three of them engineered (riprap, cribbing, and bulkheads). We measured selected physical characteristics (shore zone width, exposure, substrate roughness and grain size, shoreline complexity) of three examples of each of these shore types, and also sampled communities of terrestrial plants, fishes, and aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates. Community composition of most taxa differed across shore types, and frequently differed between wide, sheltered shores and narrow, exposed shores. Alien plant species were especially well represented along engineered shores. Nevertheless, a great deal of variation in biological communities was not explained by our six-class categorization of shore zones or the physical variables that we measured. No single shore type supported the highest values of all kinds of biodiversity, but engineered shore zones (especially cribbing and bulkheads) tended to have less desirable biodiversity characteristics than “natural” shore zones.
ISSN:1015-1621
1420-9055
DOI:10.1007/s00027-012-0252-9