Buck Creek fish samplings

Buck Creek is a spring-fed, cool-water tributary of the West Fork White
River, Indiana. The Muncie Bureau of Water Quality sampled fishes and
monitored water temperature in Buck Creek annually from 1986-2018. For
this study, we utilized long-term fish data from the Bureau of Water
Quality to evaluate spatial and temporal changes in the fish assemblages
of Buck Creek in Delaware County, Indiana, USA. Non-metric
multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was used to describe changes in the fish
assemblages over space and time. Linear mixed-effects models were used to
evaluate the relationship between environmental factors and the fish
assemblages. The spatial NMDS results were separated in distinct groups of
upstream and downstream assemblages. This was characterized by a shift of
headwater specialists shifting to large-river species. The temporal NMDS
results were separated into distinct annual assemblages. This was
characterized by a drop in pollution-tolerant species and an increase in
intolerant species. Our findings indicate that the fish assemblages have
improved in Buck Creek over space and time.