The influence of forest cover and local habitat conditions on diversity of fishes in the Lake Washington watershed, Washington

Deforestation and urbanization in the Lake Washington Watershed over the last 100 years has had a dramatic influence on terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals.  As a consequence, three native salmonid  species have been listed as threatened under the ESA, and one is currently under review.  In response to the listing of Chinook salmon in 1999, local jurisdictions in the Lake Washington/Sammamish watershed have implemented a plan to recovery listed species that relies heavily on scientific principles and data.  As part of the status and trends monitoring program of this plan, we used a stratified random sampling design to understand the relationship between riparian vegetation, in-stream habitat metrics, and biological indicators across 30 sites in the Lake Washington Watershed.  As expected, biotic integrity of fish and benthic macroinvertebrates was correlated with basin wide metrics of forest cover and total impervious area.