HR: 08:30h
AN: NB51E-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: A Model of Biocomplexity in River Networks - Part I: General Theory
AU: * Thorp, J H
EM: thorp@ku.edu
AF: University of Kansas, Kansas Biological Survey University of Kansas 142 Higuchi Hall 2101 Constant Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66047-3759 United States
AU: Thoms, M C
EM: martin.thoms@canberra.edu.au
AF: University of Canberra, Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia
AU: Delong, M D
EM: mdelong@winona.edu
AF: Winona State University, Large River Studies Center Biology Department Winona State University, Winona, MN 55987 United States
AB: We are proposing an integrated, heuristic model of lotic biocomplexity that encompasses spatiotemporal scales from headwaters to large rivers and from main channels to floodplains. Our hope is that this model will provide a foundation for understanding both broad, often discontinuous patterns along longitudinal and lateral dimensions of river networks and local ecological patterns across various temporal and smaller spatial scales. The model represents a conceptual marriage of eco-geomorphology with a terrestrial landscape model describing hierarchical patch dynamics (HPD). Contrasting with a common view of rivers as continuous, longitudinal gradients in physical conditions, our model portrays rivers as downstream arrays of large hydrogeomorphic patches formed by catchment geomorphology and climate. Unique "functional process zones" (FPZs) will be formed within individual types of hydrogeomorphic patches because of physiochemical habitat differences affecting ecosystem structure and function. Our conceptual model blends our perspectives on biocomplexity with aspects of aquatic models proposed from 1980-2004. In Part I of our oral presentation, we will give an overview of this biocomplexity model and discuss how it varies from our perspectives on the ecology of lotic ecosystems.
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly