Relationships among spring flow, habitats, and fishes within evolutionary refugia of the Edwards Plateau

Aquifers and spring complexes within the arid and semi‐arid karst Edwards Plateau region of Texas are evolutionary refugia supporting a large number of endemic flora and fauna. Spring fishes, many of which are endemic, are associated with the spring complexes, whereas river fishes generally avoid spring complexes. Purposes of this study were to experimentally test affinities of spring fishes and river fishes for spring complexes and rivers among six independent spring‐river systems of the Edwards Plateau and to quantitate relationship among spring fishes, river fishes and spring flow magnitude within spring complexes. We found that spring fishes did not exclusively use spring complexes but were more abundant in spring complexes than rivers and that species richness, relative abundance, and density of spring fishes were directly related to spring flow magnitude. Patterns in affinities for river fishes were less distinct. Quantitation of fish–habitat relationships will assist efforts in conserving aquatic resources within the Edwards Plateau and provides predictive models to assess biological integrity of other spring complexes. In addition, consistency in distributional patterns of spring and river fishes provides a framework for testing underlying processes of species segregation and diversification, establishes boundaries of aquatic evolutionary refugia, and expands the value of evolutionary refugia from historical refugia to contemporary and future refugia for Edwards Plateau aquatic biota.