The Johnstone Centre, School of Science and Technology, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, 2678, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia.
Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology, Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, PO Box 921, 2640, Albury, NSW, Australia.
Oecologia. 2001 Dec;129(4):525-533. doi: 10.1007/s004420100750. Epub 2001 Jul 17.
There is growing awareness that patterns of habitat use by animals cannot be isolated from issues of scale. Recently, techniques have been devised which allow empirical testing of hypotheses related to the effects of spatial scale on habitat use. We used spatially explicit statistical procedures to examine the roles of scale and habitat arrangement in determining fish distribution patterns in a reach of an Australian lowland river. Native golden perch and introduced common carp were tracked day and night using radiotelemetry over a 10 day period and their distributions compared with mapped habitat variables. Golden perch were significantly associated with depth, current velocity, substratum and cover at larger scales of analysis both day and night, and at smaller scales during the day. At night, however, associations between golden perch and habitat variables were generally much weaker at small scales. Common carp were generally not significantly associated with habitat variables at larger scales of analysis, whereas at smaller scales they were associated with depth, current velocity, substrate and cover. Associations were generally stronger during the day than at night. Our study emphasises the need to consider scale-dependence in studies of fish-habitat associations. Management and restoration of fish habitat in lowland rivers should be based on an understanding of habitat use at scales relevant for the fish rather than at scales arbitrarily defined by humans.
人们越来越意识到，动物的栖息地使用模式不能与尺度问题割裂开来。最近，人们设计出了一些技术，可以对与空间尺度对栖息地使用的影响相关的假设进行实证检验。我们使用空间显式统计程序，在澳大利亚低地河流的一段中，考察了尺度和栖息地布局在决定鱼类分布模式中的作用。在 10 天的时间里，我们使用无线电遥测技术对本地的金鲈和引入的普通鲤鱼进行了昼夜跟踪，并将它们的分布与映射的栖息地变量进行了比较。金鲈在白天和夜间的较大尺度分析中，与深度、流速、底质和遮蔽物显著相关，而在白天的较小尺度分析中也是如此。然而，在夜间，金鲈与栖息地变量之间的关联在小尺度上通常要弱得多。普通鲤鱼在较大尺度的分析中通常与栖息地变量没有显著关联，而在较小尺度上，它们与深度、流速、底质和遮蔽物有关。白天的关联通常比夜间更强。我们的研究强调了在鱼类-栖息地关联研究中考虑尺度依赖性的必要性。在低地河流中进行鱼类栖息地管理和恢复，应该基于对鱼类相关尺度上的栖息地使用的理解，而不是基于人为任意定义的尺度。
