Intensively Monitored Watersheds – A Tool to Help Us Understand How Ecological Processes Function and Are Effected by Stream and Watershed Restoration

Intensively Monitored Watersheds (IMWs) have been a fundamental part of long-term ecological research since the early 1900s. Ecosystem manipulation, experimentation, and long-term data collection are the foundation for these efforts. Over the last several decades, this approach to watershed scale ecological research has been applied to assess the contribution habitat restoration can make to recovery of salmonid populations that have been classified as vulnerable to extinction across the Western United States and Canada. Data collection efforts have quantified the changes in physical and biological conditions due to restoration.

These IMW studies have resulted in numerous insights into salmon response to habitat manipulation. A variety of ecological processes are influenced by habitat manipulations, however, salmon responses have been mixed for multiple reasons (Bennett et al. 2016, Bisson et al. 2023, Bilby et al 2024). The goal of this special edition is to focus on what has been learned with regards to salmon and ecological changes from habitat restoration using the intensively monitored watershed framework.

Topics we would like to cover include the following:

- What is an IMW and what does it take to implement?
- How does habitat restoration affect ecological processes at the watershed-scale?
- How does long-term monitoring allow us to differentiate between the “signal” of habitat restoration and the “noise” of natural processes and their variation?
- How have we incorporated various types of monitoring designs into IMWs to help us understand ecological processes?
- What exogenous processes outside the watershed setting influence what is observed in an IMW?
- What processes and structures within a watershed control salmon populations productivity and diversity?
- What are study design alternatives for IMWs to better capture the effects of restoration on ecological processes?
- What have we learned from IMWs about habitat restoration strategies effectiveness at the scale of ecological processes and population response?
- Can we use IMWs to monitor climate change?

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: stream restoration, monitoring, salmon, climate change

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.