THE RELATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF ECOLOGY AND HYDRAULICS TO ECOHYDRAULICS

A national meeting of the British Hydrological Society held at Loughborough University (UK) focused on process interactions between lotic organisms, flow and sediment at scales relevant to organisms. The meeting sought to address how it is possible to scale up results of small (organism) scale research at the interface of ecology, geomorphology and hydrology to improve understanding of river ecology at larger scales. The resulting papers in this special issue represent a broad cross section of the interdisciplinary research on biofilms, plants, macroinvertebrates and fish currently being undertaken in this arena. A survey of conference delegates and bibliographic analysis suggested that ecohydraulics is not a term which attracts the attention of as many biologists and ecologists as it does physical scientists (e. g. water resource engineers and geomorphologists). This may represent a hurdle on the path towards a more integrative, interdisciplinary river science because it suggests a missed opportunity for fruitful exchanges and interactions between physical and biological scientists. In this context, it is notable that one of the papers in this collection includes a passionate call for greater ecological input within the emerging field of ecohydraulics and another presents a hydraulicists view of an appropriate theoretical platform for integrating ecological, hydrodynamic and biomechanical processes. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.