Geography meets ecology

Biodiversity patterns in streams have been shown to be structured by direct physical properties of the local habitat and by proxy features on the catchment and regional scales, but one problem has been related to moderate explanatory power using such traditional environmental variables. This study investigates biodiversity patterns in northern streams by introducing the use of geographical proxy variables of environmental features (i.e. geodiversity) and dispersal (i.e. different geographical distances).

According to the results, traditional environmental variables contributed most to the variation in stream biodiversity. However, geographical proxies were useful in understanding biodiversity-environment relationships. If further developed, similar proxy variables to those presented in this thesis could offer complementary insights to help explain the structuring of biodiversity patterns in streams. In addition, conservation efforts of stream environments may also benefit from the identified cost-efficient proxy variables helping to understand the nuances in biodiversity variation.