ECOHYDRAULICS NEEDS TO EMBRACE ECOLOGY AND SOUND SCIENCE, AND TO AVOID MATHEMATICAL ARTEFACTS

We respond to comments on our review of the role of ecology in much of the ecohydraulics literature. Unfortunately, the commentators have attempted largely to defend the status quo without addressing the identified ecological weaknesses, and they have fallen into some philosophical and logical traps that commonly occur when researchers carry out multiple statistical tests. We maintain that many researchers routinely make incorrect assumptions about abundance-environment relationships, with the consequence that many inferences, predictions, models and management tools based on these relationships are logically flawed. The commentators' attempts to dismiss suggestions of potentially fruitful areas of research in ecohydraulics are specious and out of step with the current literature. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.