Effects of temperature on forested streams

A team of River Basin Center affiliates is investigating how stream ecosystems respond to environmental and global change in a project focused on the effects of warming on headwater streams in the Southern Appalachians. This ongoing research collaboration between the University of Georgia, University of Alabama, Coastal Carolina University, University of Connecticut and Virginia Tech is funded by the National Science Foundation. 

The project goals included quantifying and modeling the effects of stream warming on ecosystem processing in detritus-based streams. At the University of Georgia, the primary goals were to understand and predict the consequences of climate warming on the processing and fate of terrestrial organic carbon (the dead leaves and wood that fall into streams) in forest streams. The project goals were addressed using a series of experiments from lab-based studies to whole-stream manipulation of water temperature. Findings from the multiple experimental studies will be applied to the watershed scale by the team at the University of Connecticut. 

As another component of their research, the team built a statistical model of stream temperatures to predict how brook trout habitat may change with climate warming in the Southern Appalachians. Former River Basin Center research technician Emily Chalfin and Research Coordinator Phillip Bumpers led the temperature modeling effort which is summarized in the ArcGIS StoryMap below. Additional aspects of the project will be summarized and linked in this ongoing resource.