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AUTHOR

Teppo Vehanen

Synthesis of habitat restoration impacts on young-of-the-year salmonids in boreal rivers

River restoration offers the potential to enhance biological integrity, often measured as fish population changes. We used a meta-analytical approach to synthesize density responses to in-stream habitat restoration by young-of-the year (YOY) brown trout and Atlantic salmon in 28 rivers (overall 32 restoration projects) in Finland. We also examined which local and watershed-scale factors most influenced restoration success. Finally, we conducted an expert survey to obtain an independent estimate of a sufficient density enhancement for restoration to be considered successful. Despite strong context-dependency, habitat restoration had an overall positive effect on YOY salmonid density. When co…

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Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences

Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study designs and the magnitude of bias in their estimates. Randomised designs and controlled observational designs with pre-intervention sampling were used by just 23% of intervention studies in biodiversity conservation, and 36% of intervention studies in social science. We demonstrate, through pairwise within-study comparisons across 49 environmental da…

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Life in the ice lane: the winter ecology of stream salmonids

Despite the common view that conditions in winter strongly influence survival and population size of fish, the ecology of salmonids has not been as extensively studied in winter as in other seasons. In this paper, we review the latest studies on salmonid winter survival, habitat use, movement and biotic interactions as they relate to the prevailing physical and habitat conditions in rivers and streams. The majority of research conducted on the winter ecology of salmonids has been carried out in small rivers and streams, where temperatures are above zero and where there is no ice. Investigations in large rivers, regulated and dredged rivers, and under conditions of different ice formations a…

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Intercohort competition causes spatial segregation in brown trout in artificial streams

When together in a flume, 13-cm LS (age-1) trout appeared to increase their activity and behaved more aggressively, whereas 10-cm LS (age-0) trout tended to move less and were rarely aggressive in the presence of the larger size class. Both size classes were less mobile and preferred lower water velocities in winter than in summer, and increased their use of instream cover in winter. When both size classes were present, only small trout decreased their use of low water velocities and cover. The results indicate that intercohort competition may cause spatial segregation among size groups of brown trout, especially in winter when trout attempt to minimize their maintenance costs.

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Tackling invasive alien species in Europe II: threats and opportunities until 2020

2nd Freshwater Invasives - Networking for Strategy II (FINS-II) Conference -- JUL 11-14, 2016 -- Zagreb, CROATIA Skora, Michal Edward/0000-0002-9121-1318; Groom, Quentin/0000-0002-0596-5376; Lukas, Juliane/0000-0003-3336-847X; Skora, Michal/0000-0002-9121-1318; Piria, Marina/0000-0001-6324-9282; Smith, Emily/0000-0003-2767-9933; Simonovic, Predrag/0000-0002-4819-4962; Pastorino, Paolo/0000-0002-0585-1168; Koutsikos, Nicholas/0000-0003-0680-4504; Vilizzi, Lorenzo/0000-0001-8103-885X; Dobrzycka-Krahel, Aldona/0000-0002-4252-895X; Tarkan, Ali Serhan/0000-0001-8628-0514 WOS: 000412582000002 Invasive alien species (IAS) are a significant and growing problem worldwide. In Europe, some aspects of …

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