Landslides through the fish-eye lens.

Abstract

This issue examines research the Station has been conducting on how catastrophic disturbances affect fish habitat. Whereas our February issue discussed the physical dynamics of a flood on a landscape, here we expand to major disturbances in general while narrowing in a fish habitat still at a landscape scale.

Our work in this area is unfolding new knowledge about very complex ecological processes. We are beginning to understand how fish are weed like opportunists as they take advantage of natural cycling over long-time scales and large areas.

As scientists, one conclusion we have made about the restoration of the fish habitat so vital to the people of the Pacific Northwest, is that great consideration must be given to the role and legacy of natural disturbance. The implications for management and policy from our work are at a larger scale and more complex than we would have dreamed of only a few decades ago.

Citation

Duncan, Sally. 1998. Landslides through the fish-eye lens. Science Findings. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. March (2): 1-5