Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

An analysis of brown trout ( Salmo trutta fario L.) habitat: The role of qualitative data from expert advice in formulating probability‐of‐use curves

1989; Wiley; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/rrr.3450030129

1099-1646

P. Chaveroche, C. Sabaton,

Freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and ecology

Abstract To study the preferred habitat of brown trout, a group of fifteen experts met in the Tarn départment to answer a questionnaire relating to 200 sampled points on the Agout river. The experts were requested to give their opinion on the suitability of various habitats, defined by velocity, depth, substrate, presence of covers, etc. for trout—at each stage of growth, fry, juvenile and adult fish—and the factors which had influenced their choice. The analysis of these questionnaires has allowed probability‐of‐use curves to be plotted for brown trout. The agreement between the curves derived from this study and those proposed by Bovee is encouraging and gives credit to the validity of the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology. Direct analysis of the data collected has led to conclusions in agreement with the probability‐of‐use formulation and has identified the best conditions of habitat at different stages of growth of trout for a certain number of parameters. The paper proposes a factor analysis method to secure a direct estimate of the quality of a habitat defined by a group of independent parameters.