| We surveyed 120 state-owned culverts within the upper Cheat River basin, West Virginia, and used a fish passage evaluation filter to quantify passage barriers. We quantified the length of stream and weighted potential brook trout recruitment area isolated by each culvert. We also sampled fish communities upstream and downstream of 24 culverts to quantify the impacts of culvert-related isolation on fish assemblages. We found 69% of culverts to be completely impassable. We determined that 17% of the stream length and 23% of weighted potential recruitment area in the study area were isolated by impassable culverts. We found that impassable culverts are more likely to occur on small, steep, streams. We found that species richness and blacknose dace densities were negatively impacted upstream of culverts and culverts are more likely to impact species that are limited to larger streams, although culvert-related impacts are more pronounced on small streams. |
