The River Continuum Concept

Abstract

From headwaters to mouth, the physical variables within a river system present a continuous gradient of physical conditions. This gradient should elicit a series of responses within the constituent populations resulting in a continuum of biotic adjustments and consistent patterns of loading, transport, utilization, and storage of organic matter along the length of a river. Based on the energy equilibrium theory of fluvial geomorphologists, we hypothesize that the structural and functional characteristics of stream communities are adapted to conform to the most probable position or mean state of the physical system. We reason that producer and consumer communities characteristic of a given river reach become established in harmony with the dynamic physical conditions of the channel. In natural stream systems, biological communities can be characterized as forming a temporal continuum of synchronized species replacements. This continuous replacement functions to distribute the utilization of energy inputs over time. Thus, the biological system moves towards a balance between a tendency for efficient use of energy inputs through resource partitioning (food, substrate, etc.) and an opposing tendency for a uniform rate of energy processing throughout the year. We theorize that biological communities developed in natural streams assume processing strategies involving minimum energy loss. Downstream communities are fashioned to capitalize on upstream processing inefficiencies. Both the upstream inefficiency (leakage) and the downstream adjustments seem predictable. We propose that this River Continuum Concept provides a framework for integrating predictable and observable biological features of lotic systems. Implications of the concept in the areas of structure, function, and stability of riverine ecosystems are discussed.Key words: river continuum; stream ecosystems; ecosystem structure, function; resource partitioning; ecosystem stability; community succession; river zonation; stream geomorphology