Consistent but secondary influence of hydropeaking on stream fish assemblages in space and time

Abstract Hydropeaking corresponds to rapid artificial discharge variations, designed to address sub-daily peaks in electricity demand. It generates rapid changes in physical habitat (e.g., flow velocity and water depth) with potential impacts on stream assemblages. For assessing the generality of hydropeaking effects on fish assemblages, we present an original combination of spatial (among 45 reaches, including six groups of nearby reaches) and temporal (over 3-17 years) analyses of these effects. Our analyses involved descriptions of natural and artificial hydraulic variations in reaches, obtained after translating hourly discharge data into hydraulics. We found that the influence of hydropeaking was secondary compared to well-known spatial variations in fish assemblage structure along longitudinal gradients, and negative influences of floods on annual densities. However, the spatial and temporal analyses consistently suggested that hydropeaking may disfavour fish species typical of medium-sized streams relative to species of headwater streams (Salmo trutta, Phoxinus phoxinus, Cottus gobio). The magnitude of hydropeaking effects observed here, as well as an apparent weaker effect of ramping rates than the frequency of hydropeaks, may be due to lower ramping rates in our data set than in other studies.