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Relating land cover to stream properties in southern Chilean watersheds: trade-off between geographic scale, sample size, and explicative power

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Abstract

Several studies relating land cover to stream properties have used sample sizes of more than 100 watersheds, but the variance that they explain is moderate to low (R 2 less than 50%), limiting the predictive value of these studies when their models are applied to watersheds that were not included in the models’ development. We hypothesize that this is due to the increases in variation that occur with increases in sample size and in the geographic scales of the areas in which the watersheds are distributed. Land cover alone cannot explain all of that variation; more predictors must be considered. Conversely, models with high explicative power would require relatively small sample sizes distributed over small areas. This hypothesis was evaluated sampling 17 watersheds from southern Chile’s Lake Region, for which we developed regressive models between land cover/watershed area/precipitation/geomorphology and stream properties (i.e., conductivity, temperature). With a maximum n = 15 watersheds, on a regional scale, a poorly explained variation in hydrologic variables (mean 37–49%) was obtained. The R 2 increased slightly, to 45–52%, when precipitation was included as a predictor. In half of the cases analyzed, the models improved when geomorphology was considered as an additional predictor (60–66%), supporting our hypothesis. Furthermore, when our analysis was restricted to a narrower latitudinal span (n = 9), the R 2 was much stronger (68–87%) when only land cover and watershed area were included as predictors. These percentages also increased when more predictors were incorporated. Nevertheless, a portion of unexplained variance remained that would require the consideration of more predictors, such as geology and edaphology. The documented trade-off provides evidence that argues against the spatial generality of land cover/stream property models.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Christian Little, for pertinent discussions, and Marcelo Navarrete, Liliana Pezoa, Eduardo Neira, Patricio Rutherford, and Rocío Urrutia, for providing data for earlier drafts of this paper. All of the other members of Forecos are also acknowledged for their commentaries, which have improved this article. Forestry Engineer Raúl Caprile is acknowledged for the topographic index calculation. We would also like to thank to the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (Millbrook, New York, USA) for the research and discussion opportunities that they provided to D. Soto, and we are particularly grateful to David Strayer for his critical review of this manuscript. Miss Brooke Pennaluna also helped us with the English grammar, and Daniel Ekblaw did the final revision of the English in this paper. This research was funded by the Millennium Nucleus P01–057-F at the Universidad Austral of Chile and by Fondecyt projects 1990694 and 1020103.

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  1. Jaime G. Cuevas

    Present address: Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Vicuña, Chile

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Silvicultura, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile

    Jaime G. Cuevas & Antonio Lara

  2. Fisheries Department, FAO of UN, Via delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100, Rome, Italy

    Doris Soto

  3. Facultad de Pesquerías y Oceanografía, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 1327, Puerto Montt, Chile

    Iván Arismendi

  4. Instituto de Geociencias, Núcleo Milenio Forecos, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile

    Mario Pino & Carlos Oyarzún

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  1. Jaime G. Cuevas
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Correspondence to Jaime G. Cuevas.

 

 

Appendix 1 Ranges of the variables measured or estimated from the 17 watersheds studied
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Cuevas, J.G., Soto, D., Arismendi, I. et al. Relating land cover to stream properties in southern Chilean watersheds: trade-off between geographic scale, sample size, and explicative power. Biogeochemistry 81, 313–329 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-006-9043-5

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