Integrating taxonomic and trait analyses to assess the impact of damming on fish communities in a northern cold region river

Dams are considered one of the most important threats to freshwater ecosystems. To date assessments of the impact of riverine impoundments are based primarily on taxonomic approaches where little can be inferred about functional ecological change. We assessed the impact of damming in a cold region river fish community in Alberta, Canada by integrating taxonomic and trait-based approaches over time (before, during the first 5 years , and after 5 years of dam construction), considering the longitudinal habitat and environmental change created by reservoir formation (downstream, reservoir and upstream). Integrating both approaches was found to be informative as alterations to taxonomic composition in fish communities provided initial clues to a functional response in a spatio-temporal context. Biomonitoring should therefore explicitly consider longitudinal spatial gradients in the design, implementation and evaluation of management actions. Understanding the underlying environmental causes of why the combination of some traits are connected to the risk of species loss or a decline in their distribution is an important step towards the development of better conservation and mitigation strategies.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author