Decade-scale stream morphology and stream fish community structure in headwater streams draining Mississippi's National Forests

Decade-scale ecological datasets provide critical insights into long-term ecosystem properties, and long-term ecosystem response to human driven landscape alterations. In the state of Mississippi, USA, a history of intensive deforestation between 1830 and 1920 was followed by intensive sediment mitigation measures including intentional channel straightening and dredging and widespread reforestation. These corrective actions led to widespread and sometimes catastrophic channel incision and the potential for decoupling of floodplain and channel aquatic ecosystems. In this dataset we document a quantitative multi-decadal fish community and fish habitat dataset for 762 samples from streams draining National Forests in Mississippi. These data are used in a companion manuscript to test the hypothesis that increased channel incision relates to decreased prevalence of species with ecologies indicating floodplain, backwater, or off-channel habitat use. We provide data for associated landscape-le..., Quantitative fish and habitat data were collected at 369 sites in headwater streams draining five national forests in Mississippi (Bienville, DeSoto, Holly Springs, Homochitto, and Tombigbee National Forests). Collections occured from 1999-2003, 2008-2009, and 2015-2022, with 40-50 sites sampled yearly. Sampling at each site encompassed a stream reach 30x the mean wetted width, bounded between 120 and 240m. Fishes were collected with a combination of single-pass backpack electrofishing and single-pass seining. Habitat data were collected using a standardized point-transect method, with points taken at 1m intervals on 12 transects perpendicular to the channel width. Habitat data quantification included metrics of channel morphology and meter-scale habitat characteristics. 
Watershed-scale topology metrics and land use/land cover metrics were calculated for each site and each sampling event. Topology metrics (metrics of stream size and watershed network position of the sample site) w..., , # Decade-scale stream morphology and stream fish community structure in headwater streams draining Mississippi's National Forests

## Description

A dataset containing multi-decadal fish community and fish habitat measurements on 369 streams draining national forests in Mississippi, USA, with associated resource use data for each fish species, land use/land cover metrics and watershed topology metrics for each collection, and intermediate analysis products and analytical scripts.

### Principle Investigator Contact Information

```
Name: Loren Stearman
Institution: University of Southern Mississippi
Email: [e-mail]
```

### Alternate Contact Information

```
Name: Jake Schaefer
Institution: University of Southern Mississippi
Email: [e-mail]

Name: Scott Clark
Institution: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Baton Rouge Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office
Email: [e-mail]
```

### Dates of Data Collection

* Fish community and fish habitat data colle..., , **Changes after Sep 17, 2025:** 

File \"habitat_transects.csv\" was updated to include a column which was erroneously removed. This column (TID) contained a unique numeric identifier for every habitat transect. The associated analytical script requires this column to run correctly. The file and associated ReadMe have been updated to correct this issue.