The Lippe River in Germany has been subjected to many decades of channelization, deepening, floodplain drainage, straightening and consequent shortening, with one result being that the modern Lippe is 20% shorter than it was two centuries ago. Beginning in 1996, conservation managers began reversing this trend by widening the river, raising the level of the river bed, constructing small islands within the river and terminating floodplain drainage operations over a stretch of 3.3 km. As a result of these activities, a small portion of the river looks much like it did 200 years ago.

A section of the Lippe River before (left) and after (right) restoration.

Over a 21-year period, researchers from Arbeitsgemeinschaft Biologischer Umweltschutz have conducted systematic surveys of fish communities at the restored and unrestored sections of the river. Researchers sampled the fish community with electrofishing – inputting a direct electrical current into the river – which causes the fish to swim towards the boat where they are easily collected with nets, identified by species, and returned unharmed into the river. A data set over this length of time in association with a restoration project is very unusual; oftentimes (in part due to funding issues) only one survey is conducted to assess the fish community response to river restoration.

About eight years ago, while a postdoctoral researcher at Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, Stephan Stoll was asked to analyze some river restoration outcomes, and, as he describes, “became hooked to the topic.” To evaluate the response of the Lippe River fish community to restoration, a group of researchers headed by Stephanie Höckendorff, a Master’s student with Stoll, first asked a very simple question – how did fish abundance and species richness (the number of fish species) compare in the restored and unrestored regions of the river.

The graph below shows several striking trends. Abundance peaked about 2-3 years after restoration, declined sharply the next year, and recovered in subsequent years to about three times the abundance found in unrestored sections. Importantly, abundance varied extensively year-to-year. For example, if you had done only one survey in 2000, you would have erroneously concluded that restoration had no effect, which is why the researchers emphasize the importance of collecting data over a long stretch of time.

Abundance of fish in restored (Rest-gray curve) and unrestored (Cont-black curve) sections of the Lippe River.  The gray vertical bar indicates the start of the restoration project in 1997.

Species richness increased sharply, but did not reach its peak until nine years after restoration. Again, there was extensive year-to-year variation in species richness.

Fish species richness in restored (Rest-gray curve) and unrestored (Cont-black curve) sections of the Lippe River.  The gray vertical bar indicates the start of the restoration project in 1997.

Höckendorff and her colleagues were intrigued by this delay in species richness, and turned their attention to understanding what types of species benefited most from the restoration. Their analyses indicated that colonizing species, such as common minnows and three-spined sticklebacks, tended to have short life spans, early female maturity, several spawning events per year and a fusiform body shape – a body that is roughly cylindrical and tapers at both ends. Interestingly, some of the most successful colonizers took quite a long time to get well-established within the community.

Common minnows, Phoxinus phoxinus. Credit: Carlo Morelli (Etrusko25)

The three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. Credit: Ron Offermans

The restored habitat was highly dynamic, experiencing periodic flooding and the formation of temporary shallow bays and shifting sandbanks. These types of habitats tend to select for minnows, sticklebacks and other opportunistic species that are attracted to periodic disturbances. These opportunistic species were quick to move in, and continued to increase in abundance over time. Importantly, several rare and endangered species also colonized the restored habitat. However, large, deep-bodied, slow maturing and long-lived species did not benefit (at least over the 17 years of the survey), as these types of species are generally favored in less dynamic habitats, which are more stable and uniform.

Overall, these findings demonstrate the benefits of river restoration to the fish communities they harbor. But some species are more likely to benefit than others, and the time-scale over which recolonization occurs is highly variable. Surveys must be repeated over a long time-scale to tell conservation managers whether their restoration efforts are successful, and how they might change their future river restoration efforts.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Conservation Biology. The reference is Höckendorff, S., Tonkin, J. D., Haase, P., Bunzel-Drüke, M., Zimball, O., Scharf, M. and Stoll, S. (2017), Characterizing fish responses to a river restoration over 21 years based on species’ traits. Conservation Biology, 31: 1098–1108. doi:10.1111/cobi.12908. Thanks to the Society for Conservation Biology for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Society for Conservation Biology. All rights reserved.