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Margie Turrin

Laurel Zaima

mkt@ldeo.columbia.edu

lzaima@ldeo.columbia.edu

The Hudson as Habitat

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What is a habitat?

A place where an organism makes its home.
A natural home or environment of living things, a place with food, water and shelter.
What role do humans have in habitat protection and what role have they played in destruction?

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The Hudson watershed has a wide range of habitats

Connection to the Atlantic Ocean
Freshwater origin in many different tributaries.
Mountains & forests in the Adirondacks, Catskills, Hudson Highlands.
Marshes – saltwater, brackish and fresh.
Expansive mudflats.
Backwater channels.
Submerged plant beds.

Each provides critical habitat for a range of species.

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We are going to look at habitats through a series of ‘stories’ or Case Studies…

Every part of the river has a habitat that supports a range of species.
Humans have had an impact and altered many, if not all, of the Hudson habitats.
New York State & New Jersey State have designated areas of ‘Critical Habitat’ to protect areas that are essential habitat.
Even our most urban and heavily altered and

used areas provide essential habitat!

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What are some habitat challenges for fish?

°

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What are some habitat challenges for fish?

Habitat & spawning grounds destruction:

Dredging for shipping
Filling of coastline & backwater channels
Filling of wetlands & marshes

Invasive Species
Power Plants with once through cooling – no longer legal but a few still exist:

Warm the water and then re-discharge into the Hudson.
Pull in young of the year fish:

Impinge – suck a small fish into the screening.
Entrain -unwanted passage of fish through an intake due to size of fish/larvae versus size of screen.

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Climate Change: Increasing water temperature:

The river is warming

fish have temperature ranges

Lowering Dissolved Oxygen:

Warm water hold less oxygen
CSO events deplete oxygen

John Young

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1. Habitat & Spawning Ground Impacts: �Dredging, Deepening, Filling – Re-creating the river.

Dredging – deepening the river for large vessel traffic causes sediment redistribution, contaminant redistribution (PCBs), destroy benthic habitat
Filling in backwater channels –

Destroy fish channels, destroy

benthic habitat

3) Filling in marshes- Much of

the historic Hudson was dotted

with marshes

4) Creating isolated embayments

cut off by the railroad lines.

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Humans�Alter Habitat…��Can you find any area that remains unchanged?��What effect does this have on species?

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Freshwater Backwater Channels, Spawning & Young of the Year Habitat

Historic shoreline - RED
Current dikes - BLUE
Historic Islands –ORANGE
The rest is fill.

All that fill was once shallow backwater channels that supported juvenile fish. In all nearly 4000 acres of shallow water habitat was lost. In the upper 1/3 of the estuary nearly all side channels were filled in.

Additional changes were

created when railroad lines

cut off cove areas creating

isolated pockets.

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What happened to the ratio of shallow water to deep water?

This had a major impact on fish spawning.

Hudson River Estuary Restoration Plan

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The role of the marshes

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Hudson River Marsh Habitat

The Hudson Includes marshes including:

Saltwater
Brackish
Freshwater

They are wetlands with herbaceous not woody plants, where water sits for long periods of time. They offer:

Healthy marshes provide a rich food web for fish, macroinvertebrates, birds, small mammals
Refuge for fish and invertebrates
A diversity of plants for use by creatures in homebuilding and protection.

Marshes also provide benefits for humans. Climate change brings sea level rise to NYS which threatens all our marshes. Our sea level is rising ~3mm/yr. by 2100 sea level is expected to overtake Piermont Marsh.

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Hudson River Panorama by Wade & Croome, 1847

Marshes lined the Hudson. Most were filled for ‘Health Reasons”

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Piermont Marsh

2007 wetland map – HRNERR

Diamondback terrapins are the only turtle species that is a brackish water specific, inhabiting brackish marsh regions like Piermont Marsh. This one was found in Piermont.

Piermont Marsh habitats were mapped in 2007 and updated in 2014-2015. Although the invasive plant Phragmites Australis dominates the marsh it is still an important Hudson Habitat.

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Four Of Our Three HRNERR Sites are Bounded by Railroad Lines

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2. INVASIVE SPECIES:��Two of the Hudson’s biggest habitat disruptors!

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The Invasive…

Water Chestnut

(Trappa natans)

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The History of the water chestnuts

Native to Europe, Asia and Africa
1884: Introduced into the Hudson River- Mohawk River drainage basin as intentional waterfowl food or as a water garden escapee
Early 1990: water chestnut was established in the Hudson River

Invasive species

Less predators
Great reproductive strategies
Out competes other SAVs for sunlight

Photo courtesy of New York Invasive Species Information

Invasive Species: an organism that is not native to an ecosystem and causes harm

The water chestnut as an invasive species in North America has less natural predators, great reproductive strategies, and outcompetes other SAVs for sunlight.

T. Natans is native to Western Europe, Africa, and northeast Asia. Populations are kept in check by native insect parasites.
”Introduced to North America in the mid- to late- 1870s, which it is known to have been introduced into Cambridge botanical garden at Harvard University around 1877. It known to have been planted in other ponds in that area as well and also in Concord, MA in a pond near the Sudbury River. The plant escaped cultivation and was found growing in the Charles River by 1879. The plant was introduced into the Collins Lake near Scotia, NY (in the Hudson River-Mohawk River drainage basin around 1884, possibly as an intentional introduction for waterfowl food or possibly as a water garden escapee. By the early part of the 1900s, water chestnut was established in the Hudson River” –New York Invasive Species Information http://nyis.info/invasive_species/water-chestnut/

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Water chestnuts role in the Hudson river system

Positives

Feeding area
Prevents erosion
Slight wave attenuation

Water chestnut (Trappa natans) monoculture at Beacon.

Photo courtesy of NYS DEC

New York Invasive Species Information

Negatives:

Decrease dissolved oxygen
Little habitat value
Little nutritional value for waterfowl
Impedes commercial & recreational activities:

Fishing, boating, swimming, commercial navigation, etc.

Monoculture

So water chestnuts are an invasive species… At least they contribute to all the ecological functions like other SAVs, right? Wrong

Decrease dissolved oxygen: Water chestnuts are a unique species of SAV where they do not contribute towards dissolved oxygen because their photosynthesizing leaves are at the surface. Therefore, they are actually adding the oxygen into the air instead of the water. They actually can decrease the dissolved oxygen in an area because the dense water chestnut beds prevent much water flow through the area. The stagnant water can increase the water temperature which further decreases the dissolved oxygen.

Little Habitat value for ’hardy” invertebrates and small fish: The water chestnuts is a habitat for invertebrates and fish; however, they have to be tolerant to low dissolved oxygen conditions and usually warmer water temperatures.

Little nutritional value for waterfowl: Birds do not typically feed on the water chestnut plants

Feeding area: Underwater, on the out skirts of water chestnut beds, fish have been known to feed on invertebrates along the edges.

Erosion Prevention: The roots hold down sediment and prevent coastline erosion.

Slight wave attenuation: SAVs can reduce and absorb light wave energy as turbulent water flows through the thick SAV beds. *It is important to note that SAVs contribute toward small-wave attenuation. They are not deeply rooted or strong enough to reduce and absorb the wave energy of large storms or hurricanes.*

Impedes recreation: fishing, boating, swimming and commercial navigation are impeded by the thick mats of water chestnuts that float on the waters surface.

Monoculture: As an invasive species, they have been able to outcompete much of the native SAV, primarily water celery. This creates a monoculture- loss of diversity due to the growth of one plant in an area.

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Trappa Abundance versus native Vallisneria

How much native Vallisneria was lost?

*Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV)- Vallisneria

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Invasive Species �Zebra Mussels Impact on Habitats�

Introduced to North America from the Caspian Sea in ship ballast water.
It is a bivalve mollusk (soft bodied invertebrate that has a 2 part hinged shell as an outside covering).
Like clams, oysters, mussels, scallops.
Freshwater species so attacked the upper part of the estuary.
Settled on any hard surface.

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Zebra mussels:

Live 2-5 years.
Successful spawners! Each year females release up to 1 million eggs, males 200 million sperm!!!
Their impact on the environment is dramatic.

Interaction between alien species and restoration of large-river ecosystems; Strayer et al, 2005

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Invasive Species Impact on Habitats�Zebra Mussels…they ravaged the food source!

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Unionidae/

Native Pearly mussel

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/river-ecology

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3. Our Insatiable Appetite for Energy��Storm King

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The Storm King �Con-Edison Plan�1960s

Public domain image of pumped hydro operating principles

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The Storm King �Con-Edison Plan�1960s

The Hudson River Fishermen and their knowledge of the Striped bass & the tidal river saved the day!

1962 proposal of Storm King Mountain pumped storage from FDR library, Hyde Park

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First time the environment was used as standing in a legal case…. But few battles are won without compromise…

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First time the environment was used as standing in a legal case…. But few battles are won without compromise…

1963 proposed – license signed in 1963 and abandoned 1980 with a price of a temporary release from building closed cycle cooling towers at 3 power plants. Indian Point kills > 1 billion fish and eggs annually

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The compromise had its own horrific impacts on the habitat…

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4. Climate Impacts

Average NYS air temperature increase in the last 30 years of 2°F from 1895 to 2015 (winter it is 5°F!)

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In the Hudson water temperatures pulled from Poughkeepsie (RM76) have gone up more than 2°F in thirty years!

2°F has an ecosystem impact for fish that are used to responding to temperature cues for migration and range.

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Atlantic Tomcod Index of Abundance 1974-2014

1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

Catch per unit effort

The story of the frost fish!

Clearwater

Tomcod (winter cod) are salty/brackish cold water fish.
Bottom feeders (use their single barbel to detect food)
The Hudson is the southern end of their range.
Called the frost fish as they lay their eggs in the winter swimming up to the freshwater section of the river.
Often eggs are laid under the ice, and early stages need cool temperatures.
The warming river seems to already be having an impact.
Adapted to another habitat impact – 1947-1976 dumping of Polychloniated biphenyls (PCBs) - they mutated.

Climate Impacts

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5) As water warms it holds less oxygen

Some of our more sensitive species are unable to handle the changes that cause the oxygen to drop.

Herring, including these Atlantic Menhaden, belong to this group of sensitive species.

Menhaden travel in large schools along the Atlantic coast. Another winter spawning fish, they spawn offshore and ocean currents carry the young of the year fish into the estuary to spend their first years.

M. Turrin

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6. Habitat Challenges of Migratory Species

Striped bass

Juvenile herring

American Shad

Atlantic Sturgeon

American eel

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Migratory species�have more �challenging habitat needs.��Hudson is home to many anadromous fish��

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Migratory species have more �challenging habitat needs.��Hudson is home to �this catadromous fish

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American Shad�What role did habitat play in this species in crisis?

American Shad

Shad is the largest member of the herring family and a native fish to the Eastern Atlantic and is iconic in the Hudson. It was fished by the Native American tribes before the early settlers arrived and by every group and generation that followed after. The first fish in America to be commercially fished, it has been a backbone species since then.

1946, Setting up nets by the GW Bridge

https://earthdesk.blogs.pace.edu/2018/05/05/the-shad-returned-shad-fishermen-didnt/

1946 setting nets by the GW Bridge

http://www.alley600.eu/Dams/hydropower-dams

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The history of shad in the Hudson tells us that the habitat was stable for centuries.

American Revolution: The British army tried to block the shad from swimming upstream.
Many say George Washington was saved by the shad to feed his troops at Valley Forge.
During the Civil War southern shad fishermen were captured and held so that they could not feed their catch to the southern troops.
During both World Wars shad fishing

was supported by the Federal govt.

Shad were shipped overseas to feed

the troops.

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Native Range of American Shad

Looking at this map can you think of a few reasons it might it be challenging to protect habitat for a migratory fish?

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Native Range of American Shad

Habitat types vary during different stages of their lives.
Multiple agencies & states would need to be involved in protecting habitat.
Any change in one part of the lifecycle will have ripple effects.

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Shad is closely linked to annual temperatures

The Shadbush, (Amelanchier arborea), is a native woodland plant that blooms very early spring, the time that Shad begin their run on the river.

Annually changes in ocean temperature (the warming and cooling of the Atlantic) cause their circular swim between Florida & Canada.
At age 4 or 5 on their trip north they return to their native rivers & spawn. Late March in the Hudson.
They head upriver to freshwater laying eggs in sandy, gravelly bottoms.
Slowly the eggs are moved downriver by the tides. The fish adjust to brackish and then head out to the ocean.

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New York Range.

Shad is a Hudson native fish.

The largest of the herring at ~24”, it is an anadromous fish that seasonally runs the river in early spring.

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What has happened to shad in the last 35 years.

Geometric mean catch per haul or an average catch rate.

1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

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American Shad

Hatala 1997

The collapse of an industry.

The collapse of a species?

There are many factors affecting this species. They come into the Hudson just to spawn.

Factors influencing their movement in the Hudson include: channelizing, dredging and changes to the river bottom, dams and other obstacles, thermal discharge (power plants), changes in pH.

Factors influencing egg survival include current velocity, dissolved oxygen levels, pH, water temperature, suspended sediments, pollution, and predation. A lot to consider!

“Shad fishing in the Hudson”

1846, William Tyree Ranney

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The Future:��We know that temperature affects �the timing of migration, but warming climate will add an additional stressor to the range.

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Shad is one of our migratory fish…there are others….��Fisheries data for migratory fish for the period (1975-2010)

Current population sizes of most of these species are just 1%-10% of what they were once. Series problems of dams, habitat loss, chemical contamination & harvest regulations throughout the full range of populations all play a role.

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8. Westway:

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_{Story of protections}

By Cara Lee

Primary nursery and overwintering spot for Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) - Hudson portion are a notable amount of the Atlantic population.

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Designated Critical �Habitats

State designated areas

New York State rates and scores them
New Jersey identifies critical species

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1

2

3

5

4

IONA ISLAND – High value for:

Species Vulnerability- bird habitat with 3 threatened species:

bald eagle,
northern harrier,
pied-billed grebe

Human Use

HUDSON HIGHLANDS – High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity - mainly:

Deep turbulent river channel
Strong currents
Rocky substrate

Species vulnerability:

Atlantic sturgeon
Shortnose sturgeon
Bald eagle

3

5

2

1

Iona Island

Hudson Highlands

Haverstraw Bay

Hook Mtn.

Piermont Marsh

New York State Significant Coastal Fish & Wildlife Habitats (SCFWH)

4

Haverstraw Bay– High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity – extensive area of shallow estuarine habitat, rare in the Hudson & NYS
Species vulnerability:

Atlantic sturgeon
Shortnose sturgeon
Bald eagle
Common loon

Hook Mountain– High value for:

Human Use– Valuable site for viewing migratory birds, major source of raptor population data in the Northeast, and a hawk watching area in NYS

Piermont Marsh– High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity – only large , undeveloped, brackish marsh on the Hudson
Species Vulnerability - Pied-billed grebe, least bittern
Human Use– Fish & wildlife research & education. Also birding.

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1

2

3

5

4

IONA ISLAND – High value for:

Species Vulnerability- bird habitat with 3 threatened species:

bald eagle,
northern harrier,
pied-billed grebe

Human Use

HUDSON HIGHLANDS – High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity - mainly:

Deep turbulent river channel
Strong currents
Rocky substrate

Species vulnerability:

Atlantic sturgeon
Shortnose sturgeon
Bald eagle

3

5

2

1

Iona Island

Hudson Highlands

Haverstraw Bay

Hook Mtn.

Piermont Marsh

New York State Significant Coastal Fish & Wildlife Habitats (SCFWH)

132.9

4

151.5

224.7

26

125.4

Haverstraw Bay– High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity – extensive area of shallow estuarine habitat, rare in the Hudson & NYS
Species vulnerability:

Atlantic sturgeon
Shortnose sturgeon
Bald eagle
Common loon

Hook Mountain– High value for:

Human Use– Valuable site for viewing migratory birds, major source of raptor population data in the Northeast, and a hawk watching area in NYS

Piermont Marsh– High value for:

Ecosystem Rarity – only large , undeveloped, brackish marsh on the Hudson
Species Vulnerability - Pied-billed grebe, least bittern
Human Use– Fish & wildlife research & education. Also birding.

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1

2

3

5

4

Image: Scenic Hudson

Image: desmdpc

Image: Joe Penny

Image: Jon Paradiso

Image: Mark Vergari, Journal News

c

a

d

b

e

Iona Island

Hudson Highlands

Haverstraw Bay

Hook Mtn.

Piermont Marsh

New York State Significant Coastal Fish & Wildlife Habitats (SCFWH)

132.9

151.5

224.7

125.4

26

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1

2

3

5

4

Image: Scenic Hudson

Image: desmdpc

Image: Joe Penny

Image: Jon Paradiso

Image: Mark Vergari, Journal News

c

a

d

b

e

Iona Island

Hudson Highlands

Haverstraw Bay

Hook Mtn.

Piermont Marsh

New York State Significant Coastal Fish & Wildlife Habitats (SCFWH)

c -132.9

b - 151.5

e - 224.7

d - 125.4

a -26

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Lower Hudson Critical Habitats

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Hudson New Jersey Coast Critical Habitats

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Upper Hudson Critical Habitats

This part of the Hudson is long and narrow so hard to develop a map for.

For the Upper Estuary you would want to pull sectional maps to match protected areas.

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Student Activity

Select an area from the Hudson sites identified by NYS
Create a ppt
Identify the location & habitat
Explain the state rating
What lives there & uses the habitat
Larger role in the ecosystem
What might impact this area
If we lose this area what would be the impact on species
What is the best step towards its protection.

Coxsackie Island Backwater Channel

RM 125

RARE SECONDARY CHANNEL AS MOST FILLED BY DREDGING

New York State Critical Habitats - https://www.dos.ny.gov/opd/programs/consistency/scfwhabitats.html#hudson

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For more opportunities to explore student collected data from the Hudson visit…

https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/dayinthelife/

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We would love you to visit our Field Station website!

https://blog.ldeo.columbia.edu/piermont/