Ecohydrology Bearings — Invited Commentary Is ecohydrology missing much of the zoo? Cherie J. Westbrook, 1 * William Veatch 2 and Alasdair Morrison 1 1 Centre for Hydrology and Department of Geography & Planning, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada 2 US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, CEMVN-ED-H, New Orleans, LA, USA ABSTRACT Ecohydrology is now recognized as an interdisciplinary field, and as it grows, there needs to be greater awareness and dialogue on its focus and future direction. To take a ‘bearings’ on where we are, 339 ecohydrological articles published between January 2000 and December 2011 in two databases were surveyed. We found that 72% of the studies address questions at the interface of plant ecology and hydrology. The scarcity of studies of animals as drivers of hydrological patterns and processes led us to question the reasons behind plant-based ecologists embracing the term ecohydrology to a greater extent than animal-based ecologists. Following that discussion are current examples of synergies between animal ecologists and hydrologists that have led to a greater understanding of ecosystem processes and a way for ecohydrologists to factor in faunal interactions in their future research. We end by suggesting that ecohydrology form its own scientific society so it can more purposely advance knowledge and understanding of coupled ecological and hydrological system functions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTION Ecohydrology has emerged over the last 15years from the parent disciplines of ecology and hydrology and asserted itself as an interdisciplinary ‘discipline’ (Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000; Kundzewicz, 2002; Petts et al., 2006; Smettem, 2008). Crossing disciplinary boundaries is considered ‘the most promising path to scientific advancement, intellectual adventure, and human awareness’ (Rhoten, 2004). By fully considering the breadth of interactions between the hydro- logical and ecological sciences, we improve our chances of truly understanding the biophysical nature (and links) of land and water systems. If, however, ecohydrology is drawn only to specific disciplinary crossovers, we limit the development of transformative insights into the structure and function of our environment. Broad community engagement has been supported in similar disciplines by associations such as societies or interest groups (Baker, 1989). King and Caylor (2011) opened the floor for reflective dialogue on the practice of ecohydrology. They called for use of the strongest methods from each parent discipline rather than the use of only common ones. Here, we expand this dialogue by taking stock of the research themes studied so far, citing one that remains relatively unexplored, and outlining a pathway ecohydrologists could use to study it. Specifically, we first provide evidence of an imbalance in the field towards plant-based, rather than fauna-based publica- tions, and then highlight how a more inclusive approach to ecohydrology could lead us to major breakthroughs. HOW ECOHYDROLOGY HAS BEEN PRACTISED The critical first step one takes when reflecting on the practice of a field is to consider the themes researched. We used two independent data sets to test our tenet of an imbalance between plant and animal sciences in ecohydrology. Data set one was articles indexed in Science Direct W , published between January 2000 and December 2011, that contained the terms ‘ecohydrology’ or ‘eco-hydrology’ in their key words, titles, or abstracts. Not indexed in Science Direct W is Ecohydrology; papers published in this journal are data set two. We assume all published authors identify with the discipline, or they would have chosen an alternate outlet for their work. Abstracts of all papers in Ecohydrology from its first issue (January 2008) to December 2011 were obtained (commentaries were excluded), for a total of 196. We openly acknowledge that a number of papers that should be considered ‘ecohydrological’ were missed by our choice of search terms, including some of our own (e.g. Westbrook et al., 2006, 2011). However, we think we collected a large enough sample from the total population of ecohydrology papers such that data set one is sufficiently robust for us to draw reliable conclusions, especially when augmented by data set two. The year 2000 was an ideal start date for a search in Science Direct W as it allowed us to identify the maximum number of ecohydrological papers with our search terms. By then, biophysical scientists were likely to either consider their work as ecohydrological or described it under the ecohydrology epithet (Zalewski et al., 1997; Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2000). Abstracts of ecohydrology papers indexed in Science Direct W were obtained and duplicates were removed, for a total of 143. General themes of the 339 abstracts were identified, and a classification was created. ‘Fauna’ was defined, for the *Correspondence to: Cherie J. Westbrook, Centre for Hydrology and Department of Geography & Planning, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 5C8. E-mail: cherie.westbrook@usask.ca ECOHYDROLOGY Ecohydrol. 6,1–7 (2013) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/eco.1365 Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.