Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Kansas
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Resource managers need science-based tools to assess how human activities (e.g., dams and habitat modification) impact fish and other aquatic resources. Useful conservation tools must be based on rigorous science, yet they also must address specific problems of interest to environmental managers. The activities in this research project matter because low-head dams are one of the major threats to aquatic biodiversity. These barriers alter geomorphology, hydrology, and ecological patterns and processes. However, relatively little research has been done on the over 2,000,000, smaller low-head dams that block U.S. streams and rivers. In this project, our partners were the Ecological Services Division of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism. This research, which quantified habitat, geomorphology, hydrology, and fish communities at six low-head dams and at six undammed sites within the Neosho River, KS, informed management decisions. The novel and insights of our research included the quantification of geomorphic dam footprints, the detection of keystone habitat effects, the importance of habitat mosaics, and the finding that alternative approaches to measuring dam effects provided contrasting scientific information (i.e., the blind man and the elephant effect). This research impacted management decisions on dam removal, renovation, and associated watershed management by providing original Kansas-based data on dams that agency cooperators can use in communicating with private landowners and policy-makers.