Fish Response to Biofuels as an Alternative Energy Source

Local, regional, and landscape land use patterns have been shown to influence fish assemblages in streams and rivers, and future land use changes   related to an expanding global human population will likely cause additional shifts in fish assemblages For example, increasing demands for biofuel crops have caused shifts in traditional corn/soybean crop rotations to favor corn-only cropping in many areas across North Central Indiana. We used crop information from USDA in GIS to determine the spatial and temporal scale at which shifts in crop rotations are occurring. Sites were selected to coincide with previously sampled sites assessed from 2002-2003. These sites were further narrowed down based on their proximity to at least one of the following existing condition treatments: non-rotating crops, traditional crop rotation, and pasture/hay. Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) and Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) were calculated for each site. Differences among the previous samples and the 2010-11 samples were evaluated to infer potential consequences of changing land use patterns expected to result from future biofuel cropping scenarios.