Conservation of Aquatic Biodiversity

The streams of the southern Appalachians drain ancient landscapes (> 250 million years old), and contain a rich and distinctive fauna with many endemics. The areas long evolutionary history has not been interrupted by sea level rise or Pleistocene glaciation (Hack 1969).

The level of aquatic biodiversity is widely recognized as the highest of any temperate region in the world, rivaling tropical systems. The diversity of aquatic invertebrate species appears to be greater than that of any other region in North America, with up to 50 percent of some taxonomic groups still undescribed (Brigham and others 1982). Out of 297 mussel species occurring in the United States, 269 are found in the Southeast (Neves and others 1997). An estimated 350 species of fish occur (some still being described), some 18 percent of which are imperiled (Walsh and others 1995).

This diverse fauna and its setting in a rapidly changing landscape present substantial challenges for aquatic resource managers. Conservation of individual species, aquatic communities, and flowing water habitats will be potentially difficult. Over the past century a large body of knowledge has accumulated on the zoogeography, distribution, and biology of the southeastern fish fauna and to a lesser extent other aquatic organisms. This diversity is threatened. A number of imperiled species from all faunal groups are threatened or endangered. The primary threats to the biological integrity of the region are habitat alteration and loss and introduced species.