Angus McIntosh

ProfessorAngus McIntosh

Freshwater Ecology
Julius von Haast 333

Qualifications

Research Interests

I work at all levels in freshwater ecosystems, ranging from population and community ecology through to ecosystem and aquatic landscape ecology, including work on fish and invertebrates in streams, lakes and wetlands. I’ve been particularly interested in aquatic food webs, predator-prey interactions, the influences of flow-related habitat size and disturbance in rivers, exchanges between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and restoration and rehabilitation. This has included long-running studies in the upper Waimakariri River system in Canterbury, at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado and in agricultural streams of the Canterbury Plains. Important aspects include investigations of:
- effects of non-native trout on galaxiid fishes,
- riverscape configuration influences on fish and other aquatic biodiversity,
- changes in river habitat size (e.g. through alteration in flows) on river food webs,
- habitat drying on pond communities,
- connections between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (cross-ecosystem influences)
-restoration of agricultural streams in the Canterbury Waterway Rehabilitation Experiment (CAREX).

See the FERG (Freshwater Ecology Research Group) pages for more details on this research and my EcologyLive website (see link under Resources above) for photographs, stories and information of interest to a wider audience.

Recent Publications

  • Barrett IC., McIntosh AR. and Warburton HJ. (2023) Community type and disturbance type interact to determine disturbance response: implications for extending the environmental filter metaphor. Community Ecology 24(2): 257-269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42974-023-00149-3.
  • Barrett IC., McIntosh AR. and Warburton HJ. (2023) Correction to: Community type and disturbance type interact to determine disturbance response: implications for extending the environmental filter metaphor (Community Ecology, (2023), 24, 2, (257-269), 10.1007/s42974-023-00149-3). Community Ecology 24(2): 271. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42974-023-00156-4.
  • Crichton BRJ., Hickford MJH., McIntosh AR. and Schiel DR. (2023) Predicting biomass of resident kōkopu (Galaxias) populations using local habitat characteristics. PLoS ONE 18(3 March) http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261993.
  • Earl BC., McIntosh AR., O'Regan RP., Brown SK. and Warburton HJ. (2023) Invasion of a non-native anuran likely disrupts pond ecosystems. Freshwater Biology 68(7): 1194-1210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/fwb.14097.
  • Hogsden K., O’Brien S., Bartlett S., Warburton H., Devlin H., Collins K., Febria C., Goeller B., McIntosh A. and Harding J. (2023) Riparian plant species offer a range of organic resources to stream invertebrate communities through varied leaf breakdown rates. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 57(1): 136-151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00288330.2021.2005637.