Identifying disturbances to fish habitat The first step in identifying disturbances to fish habitat involved summarizing stream fish species data into a set of metrics that could be potential indicators of stream habitat condition. Examples of metrics include summaries of fish species by their feeding preferences, reproductive strategies, or tolerance to stressors. While many potential indicators were generated, an analytical process was used to identify a subset of metrics that were the most effective indicators of habitat condition in each of nine large ecoregions (Stoddard et al. 2008). Next, each of the key fish metrics was tested against each of the human landscape factors summarized in watersheds and stream buffers described [...]
