Envisioning, quantifying, and managing thermal regimes on river networks

BioScience
By: , and 

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Abstract

Water temperatures fluctuate in time and space, creating diverse thermal regimes on river networks. Temporal variability in these thermal landscapes has important biological and ecological consequences because of nonlinearities in physiological reactions; spatial diversity in thermal landscapes provides aquatic organisms with options to maximize growth and survival. However, human activities and climate change threaten to alter the dynamics of riverine thermal regimes. New data and tools can identify particular facets of the thermal landscape that describe ecological and management concerns and that are linked to human actions. The emerging complexity of thermal landscapes demands innovations in communication, opens the door to exciting research opportunities on the human impacts to and biological consequences of thermal variability, suggests improvements in monitoring programs to better capture empirical patterns, provides a framework for suites of actions to restore and protect the natural processes that drive thermal complexity, and indicates opportunities for better managing thermal landscapes.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Envisioning, quantifying, and managing thermal regimes on river networks
Series title BioScience
DOI 10.1093/biosci/bix047
Volume 67
Issue 6
Year Published 2017
Language English
Publisher Oxford Academic
Contributing office(s) Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
Description 17 p.
First page 506
Last page 522
Country United States
State Washington
City Darrington
Other Geospatial Sauk River
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