Eric O. Goodwin

Cawthron Institute | CI · Coastal and Freshwater

Habitat Suitability Curves (HSCs) are the biological component of habitat simulation tools used to evaluate instream flow management trade‐offs (e.g., the Physical Habitat Simulation Model). However, traditional HSCs based on empirical observations of habitat use relative to availability have been criticized for generating biased estimates of flow...

Ecological data are often collected at small geographic scales. However, analysing data collectively over wider scales can reveal results and patterns not shown in the smaller-scale data. We summarised data for intertidal benthic ecological (physico-chemical and biological) health indicators from New Zealand estuaries and compared the results again...

Understanding of colony specific properties of cyanobacteria in the natural environment has been challenging because sampling methods disaggregate colonies and there are often delays before they can be isolated and preserved. Microcystis is a ubiquitous cyanobacteria that forms large colonies in situ and often produces microcystins, a potent hepato...

This study advances understanding of the flow dependency of invertebrate drift in rivers and its relevance to drift-feeding fish. Background drift concentration varied spatially and with flow over natural flow recession (lower mid-range to low flow) in a reach of a New Zealand river, largely consistent with passive entrainment. Seven taxonomic grou...

Understanding what drives variation in fish abundance at reference sites provides perspective for assessing the effects of human alterations to river flow and land use. We examined temporal variation in fish community abundance in a headwater tributary of a large river in the upper South Island (New Zealand) over 10 years. We were interested in the...

This draft NIWA report provides the first attempt to develop bottom-line thresholds for suspended and deposited sediment based on ecological responses for New Zealand rivers and streams.

Online dataset

In response to the need to assess the ecological quality or health of marine benthic habitats, there has been a proliferation of biotic indices based on soft sediment macrofaunal communities. While shown to be useful in areas where they have been developed, some indices may not be readily transferrable to other regions due to differences in species...

Setting numeric in-stream objectives (limits, criteria) to inform limits on catchment loads for major landuse stressors is a promising policy instrument to prevent ecosystem degradation. Management objectives can be informed by thresholds identified from stressor - response shapes of ecological indicators based on field survey data. Use of multiple...

This document is the final written output from the Ministry for the Environment funded project on benthic macroinvertebrate indicators of ecosystem health (Contract 21630). The project was designed to address a recognised need to include macroinvertebrates in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) 2014. Benthic macroinvert...

Reference benchmarks are needed to assess the contemporary status of rivers and to establish restoration targets. We developed predictive models to estimate site-specific reference values for a macroinvertebrate community index (MCI), which is used to indicate a range of human impacts on wadeable streams. We compared three statistical modelling app...

The production of valuable metabolites from microalgae represents a potentially sustainable source of a range of products that can be difficult to synthesise directly. Microalgae respond to the dynamic and often subtly shifting growth environment in a complex way. The optimal conditions for growth can be quite different to those needed for optimal...

Didymosphenia geminata (Lyngbye) M. Schmidt is a stalked freshwater diatom that is expanding its range globally. In some rivers, D. geminata forms thick and expansive polysaccharide-dominated mats. Like other stalked diatoms, D. geminata cells attach to the substratum with a pad of adhesive extracellular polymeric substance. Research on D. geminata...

Using a space-for-time substitution design, we investigated the response of structural instream habitat and fish populations to different riparian management practices throughout a Dairy Best Practice Catchment. We found a significant negative correlation between the upstream area of stock exclusion fencing and deposited instream fine sediment cove...

The shift towards more comprehensive marine management (e.g. marine spatial planning and ecosystem based management) requires consideration of the spatial patterns of the cumulative impacts of human activities on ecosystems. Halpern et al. (2008) developed a model to quantify cumulative impact and several studies have used this approach. However, n...

We compared a process-based invertebrate drift and drift-feeding net rate of energy intake (NREI) model and a traditional hydraulic-habitat model (using the RHYHABSIM [River Hydraulics and Habitat Simulation] software program) for predicting the flow requirements of 52-cm Brown Trout Salmo trutta in a New Zealand river. Brown Trout abundance predic...

Coal mining activities can have severe and long-term impacts on freshwater ecosystems. At the individual stream scale, these impacts have been well studied; however, few attempts have been made to determine the predictors of mine impacts at a regional scale. We investigated whether catchment-scale measures of mining impacts could be used to predict...

Comprehensive marine management approaches, such as ecosystem based management and marine spatial planning, would benefit from quantitative, spatially explicit estimates of the cumulative impact of human activities on marine ecosystems. In this study, a method to map and quantify cumulative impact was applied to estimate the combined impact of mult...

Integrating multiple measures of stream health into a combined metric can provide a holistic assessment of the ecological integrity of a stream. The aim of this study was to develop a multimetric index (MMI) of stream integrity based on predictive modelling of national data sets of water quality, macroinvertebrates, fish and ecosystem process metri...

We tested a model [Benthic Invertebrate Time series Habitat Simulation (BITHABSIM)] for simulating the effect of changes in flow on benthic macroinvertebrate habitat and relative abundance. The model calculates a habitat index (WUA2) based on weighted usable area (WUA) modified to account for reduction of invertebrate abundance by flood disturbance...

Sediment resuspension is an important factor in controlling the impact of any localised point source impacts such as salmon farms; at high flow (dispersive) sites resuspension can significantly reduce potential effects. DEPOMOD is widely used to predict localised seabed impacts and includes an optional flow-related resuspension module. This study e...

New Zealand fiords frequently feature a buoyant low-salinity layer (LSL) leading to unique biological communities on their rock walls. The LSL has previously been distinguished by its temperature, but we show this is not always reliable. We describe temporal and spatial patterns in water temperature in Doubtful Sound, and the influences of rainfall...

1. Modification of natural landscapes and land-use intensification are global phenomena that can result in a range of differing pressures on lotic ecosystems. We analysed national-scale databases to quantify the relationship between three land uses (indigenous vegetation, urbanisation and agriculture) and indicators of stream ecological integrity....

1. Broad-scale assessment of stream health is often based on correlative relationships between catchment land-use categories and measurements of stream biota or water chemistry. Few studies have attempted to characterise the response curves that describe how measures of ecosystem function change along gradients of catchment land use, or explored ho...

Incorporating a model metabolism in an artificial organism gives it the potential to develop behaviour which is lifelike, interesting and entertaining to interact with. The physiological component of such a metabolism provides behavioural requirements and limitations that reflect those imposed on real-life organisms, and the psychological component...