In many regions of the world, homebuilding and residential development is concentrated around lake shorelines. The impacts of lakeshore residential development on riparian and littoral habitats are well documented. Yet we have a poor understanding of how these human-driven habitat changes influence the biota such as nearshore fish communities. Here we compare developed and undeveloped stretches of shorelines in two lakes in which approximately half of the shoreline is developed, and the other half is undeveloped. This approach offers unique insights because comparisons are not confounded by underlying differences in fish communities among lakes. Comparing developed and undeveloped shorelines, there were no differences in sediment hardness, slope, and macrophyte biovolume. In contrast, there were strong differences in shoreland habitat and littoral coarse woody habitat. Path analysis revealed the direct and habitat-mediated effects of lakeshore residential development on nearshore fish communities. The overall effects of residential development on nearshore fish communities at the intra-lake scale were subtle. Our study adds to our understanding of the interactive effects of lakeshore residential development and habitat on biotic communities and highlights the importance of the scale of analysis for understanding these effects.

Primary Presenter: M. VANDER ZANDEN, University of Wisconsin - Madison (mjvanderzand@wisc.edu)

Authors:

K. Perales, Napa County Resource Conservation District  (kousei@gmail.com)