Project Goal: To quantify associations among stream hydrogeomorphic features, biotic communities, and ecosystem processes.
Background and Rationale: Attempts to catalog the biological, hydrological, and physical diversity of fluvial systems and to explain underlying mechanisms have yielded a number of seminal concepts in stream ecology, many largely drawing on the science of fluvial geomorphology. However, despite the long-standing recognition of the relationships between stream channel morphology and ecology, the true interplay of fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, and stream ecology (e.g., ecogeomorphology, hydromorphology) has only recently received attention as a unified, interdisciplinary field. This long-term project seeks to contribute to current understanding of these linkages and inform both basic science as well as management, restoration, and conservation. To date, we have carried out research on this topic in multiple US regions (Vermont, Idaho, Ohio) and in the Baltics (Lithuania).