Long-Term Regime Shifts in Xeric Ecoregion Freshwater Fish Assemblages due to Anthropogenic and Climate Stressors

Shifting climate regimes are projected to increase the area of xeric regions and result in more pronounced intermittency across river networks. Given these projected changes, we aim to understand the factors contributing to species persistence under increasing aridity. To investigate how changing flow regimes are related to changes in fish richness and assemblage composition, we compiled data from 1473 xeric stream sites in the United States and Australia. The temporal coverage of this dataset is more than 40 years, from 1980 to 2021. Our focus was on fishes occurring in xeric streams and included 191 species. We compiled climate, hydrologic, and fish species trait data to identify relationships between environmental drivers of species persistence and corresponding characteristics common to species in these systems and traits eliciting the strongest responses to environmental change. Our data show declines in overall precipitation in concert with increasing temperatures over the last several decades. Climatic shifts were accompanied by declines in discharge, increased zero-flow days, and longer durations of no-flow periods. In these same systems, an overall linear decline in fish species richness was observed, but it was not directly correlated with any hydrologic predictors. However, xeric species of conservation concern were small-bodied and occupied lower trophic levels than those not of concern. Listed species were primarily affected by multiple stressors, including habitat degradation and invasive species, compounded by a small geographic range. We thus propose a multiple stressors argument for the declines in xeric fish assemblages, something that may be exacerbated by climate alterations in the future. This work highlights a critical conservation need for xeric fishes and identifies taxa that are especially vulnerable to a combination of anthropogenic stressors and changing climates.