A habitat is a place where organisms make it its home. A habitat meets all the needs of an organism to help it survive. For animals, that means it provides food, shelter, space, and the opportunity to find a mate. For plants, a good a habitat must provide the right about of sunlight, air, soils, and water to help it survive and thrive. A riparian zone along a stream provides a unique habitat land and aquatic animals. The rich soils, abundant moisture, and regular inputs of nutrients and biological materials result in a complex natural community.
Riparian Buffers
Riparian zones provide many important functions and benefits, including:
- Providing habitat (including migration routes and habitat connectors) for a diversity of wildlife,
- Helping to maintain water quality, because riparian vegetation can remove excess nutrients and sediment from surface runoff,
- Stabilizing stream banks and reducing floodwater velocity (thanks to riparian vegetation)
In addition to riparian plants providing habitat and stabilizing stream banks, overhanging vegetation shades streams, which reduces water temperatures for fish.
Macroinvertebrates
What are benthic macroinvertebrates?
Benthic (meaning "bottom-dwelling") macroinvertebrates are small aquatic animals and the aquatic larval stages of insects. They include dragonfly and stonefly larvae, snails, worms, and beetles. They lack a backbone, are visible without the aid of a microscope and are found in and around water bodies during some period of their lives. Benthic macroinvertebrates are often found attached to rocks, vegetation, logs and sticks or burrowed into the bottom sand and sediments.
Why is it important to evaluate benthic macroinvertebrates?
Benthic macroinvertebrates are commonly used as indicators of the biological condition of waterbodies. They are reliable indicators because they spend all or most of their lives in water, are easy to collect and differ in their tolerance to pollution. Macroinvertebrates respond to human disturbance in predictable ways, are relatively easy to identify in the laboratory, often live for more than a year and, unlike fish, have limited mobility. In fact, because they cannot escape pollution, macroinvertebrates have the capacity to integrate the effects of the stressors to which they are exposed, in combination and over time. Biologists have been studying the health and composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities for decades.
What do benthic macroinvertebrates tell us about the condition of water?
Evaluating the abundance and variety of benthic macroinvertebrates in a waterbody gives us an indication of the biological condition of that waterbody. Generally, waterbodies in healthy biological condition support a wide variety and high number of macroinvertebrate taxa, including many that are intolerant of pollution. Samples yielding only pollution–tolerant species or very little diversity or abundance may indicate a less healthy waterbody. Biological condition is the most comprehensive indicator of waterbody health. When the biology of a waterbody is healthy, the chemical and physical components of the waterbody are also typically in good condition. In addition to benthic macroinvertebrates, scientists also evaluate algae and fish populations to come up with robust estimates of biological condition.
Mussels
What are mussels?
Freshwater mussels are soft-bodied animals enclosed in two shells connected by a hinge. These animals live buried in gravel, sand, or mud at the bottom of lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers. All mussels are filter feeders. With its foot buried in the bottom, a mussel draws fresh water carrying oxygen and nutrients while deoxygenated water and waste are expelled. The mussel's food consists of bacteria, plankton, and detritus. Unused food particles are distributed back to the stream bottom as "pseudofeces". Freshwater mussels have a complicated life cycle, and are dependent on connecting with a host fish. Mussels have some fascinating ways to attract their fish hosts: lures, packets of larvae, nets, scented packets, etc. Little is known about the juvenile mussel life stage. It is thought to be the most sensitive stage in the life cycle of a freshwater mussel. Mussels reach sexual maturity in 1 to 4 years. Each year the mussel lays down a winter growth line, allowing biologists to age a species. Mussels probably have the longest life spans of any of the freshwater invertebrates. Some of the thicker shelled river species of mussels have a life span of 20 to 100 years.
Why are mussels important?
Freshwater mussels are a renewable resource. They serve as an important food source for many aquatic and terrestrial animals. Mussels improve water quality by filtering out contaminants, sediments, and nutrients from our rivers and streams. Mussels also function as environmental indicators. They are sensitive to toxic chemicals and serve as an early warning system that alerts us to problems with water quality. Mussels are used in the cultured pearl and jewelry industry. The annual value of mussel shells to the shell industry has been between $40 and $50 million. Conservation, protecting, and enhancing mussel habitat is good for all aquatic species. High diversity mussel populations are indicators of a healthy stream for all species. Efforts are also underway in Kentucky to propagate rare and endangered mussels for augmentation and enhancement of native populations. KDFWR established the Center for Mollusk Conservation in 2002 with its mission to conserve and manage declining mussels.
Freshwater mussels, also known as mollusks, are one of the most imperiled groups of animals in North America. There are 297 species and subspecies of mussels found in North America. Of the 103 species of mussels native to Kentucky, 20 have completely disappeared from the state, and 36 more are considered rare or endangered. Forty six species are on the Agency's 
Species of Greatest Conservation Need list within Kentucky's Wildlife Action Plan. As of 2013, there are 27 species in Kentucky that are listed as federally endangered or threatened (2 are candidates for listing). Kentucky has significant populations in many rivers, including over 70 species in the Ohio, Green, and Cumberland River systems. Mussels have been declining since modern civilization began to bring about habitat changes. This process has been greatly accelerated in the last 100 years, resulting in the listing of the species.
Reptiles & Amphibians
Reptiles of Kentucky
Reptiles (formerly Class Reptilia) include about 3,700 kinds of lizards, 2,300 snakes, and 240 turtles and tortoises worldwide. Snakes and lizards (Class Lepidosauromorpha) are now recognized as biologically distinct from turtles (Class Testudines) and have been placed in completely separate groups. For the sake of simplicity, we will continue to treat all of our snakes, lizards, and turtles as reptiles. At present, 56 species of reptiles are known to occur in Kentucky (10 lizards, 32 snakes, and 14 turtles). One additional snake - the Eastern Coachwhip - has not been seen in Kentucky in more than 40 years and was probably not native to our state in the first place. Most of our reptiles are native, but at least 2 species (Common Wall-lizard and Mediterranean House Gecko) are exotics that have been introduced into Kentucky from other parts of the world.
Kentucky's reptiles occur in a wide variety of habitats. In general, our lizards tend to prefer dry, open areas, although some types of skinks also occur in damp woodlands. From a habitat perspective, the snakes form a highly variable group; some are largely aquatic and must live in and near water; others are primarily terrestrial. Some kinds of snakes spend most of their time underground in burrows and small mammal runways, and some are largely arboreal and spend most of their time climbing among trees, shrubs, and vines. Most Kentucky turtles (13 of 14) are aquatic and leave the water only to make overland migrations between water bodies or lay their eggs. Only 1 species (Eastern Box Turtle) is terrestrial. All of Kentucky's lizards and snakes are carnivorous; most turtles are omnivorous as adults and largely carnivorous as hatchlings, but our four kinds of map turtles feed almost completely on freshwater invertebrates.
Amphibians of Kentucky
Amphibians (Class Amphibia) form a moderately diverse group, with about 4,100 species worldwide, including more than 3,700 species of frogs and nearly 400 species of salamanders. At the present time, 57 amphibian species are known to occur in Kentucky (35 types of salamanders and 22 frogs and toads).
Kentucky's amphibians occur in a wide variety of places. Some kinds are largely or totally terrestrial, while others are entirely aquatic throughout their life cycle. Some are found only in swamps and/or bottomland forests bordering the Mississippi River and lower Ohio River, while others prefer upland forests in various sections of the state or even the high elevation northern hardwood forests in extreme southeastern Kentucky. A few even occupy open grasslands and prairie remnants.
All of Kentucky's frogs and toads breed and lay their eggs in water. Some species prefer temporary ponds, road ruts, and ditches as breeding sites while others use permanent ponds or even the backwater areas of rivers and large streams. Kentucky's salamanders are more variable in breeding habitat; 10 kinds are completely terrestrial at all life stages while the remaining 25 species have aquatic larvae. The terrestrial forms deposit their eggs in moist places on land, the eggs are brooded by the females, and all larval development takes place within the eggs. Those species with aquatic larval stages are themselves quite variable – 9 kinds only breed in ponds, 2 use swamps and/or wetlands, 2 utilize large streams and rivers, and 12 reproduce in springs, seeps, and headwater streams. All adult salamanders and frogs in Kentucky are predators, mostly feeding on insects and other small creatures. All salamander larvae are also predaceous, but frog larvae (tadpoles) are herbivores.
Handouts
Aquatic Mammals
Twenty-seven small mammal species are known to occur in Kentucky. This number is based on a statewide small mammal survey conducted by KDFWR that began in 1988 to determine the distribution of all small mammals in KY. The survey utilized pitfall, bottle, and snap traps placed in a variety of habitats on public and private lands. This comprehensive survey produced over 9000 specimens and determined that the Northern Short-tailed shrew was the most widely distributed small mammal in the state. Species with extremely limited distributions included the Southern Short-tailed Shrew, Southern Red-backed Vole, Allegheny Woodrat, Marsh Rice Rat, Cotton Mouse, Hispid Cotton Rat, Masked Shrew, and the Long-tailed Shrew.
One mammal species is endemic to Kentucky, meaning it is found nowhere else in the world. The Kentucky red-backed vole, a subspecies of the Southern red-backed vole, is currently known only from portions of eastern Kentucky and is one of Kentucky's species of greatest conservation need.
Aquatic Birds
Kentucky hosts a diverse array of waterfowl and waterbirds, particularly in western wetlands like Ballard WMA, Kentucky Lake, and Barkley Lake, which attract ducks (mallards, wood ducks, teal) and geese (Canada, snow). Over 350 species of birds have been documented in Kentucky. Of these, approximately 150 species breeds in the state, with the remainder being winter residents or transients that just pass through the state during migration.