Large woody debris (LWD) and large wood accumulations (logjams) play a critical role in creating and maintaining habitat complexity in river corridors. However, the relationship between large wood, habitat complexity, and biodiversity is poorly resolved. Here, we assess how logjams influence aquatic and riparian vertebrate diversity in Big Creek, a 6th-order wilderness river in central Idaho, USA. Big Creek is one of the few remaining montane rivers with both an intact disturbance regime and full faunal assemblage. It therefore represents a rare opportunity to examine how disturbance-driven processes shape ecological communities in the relative absence of anthropogenic forces. Following a 2014 avalanche, thousands of standing dead trees were deposited into the upper reaches of Big Creek. Subsequently, that wood has been mobilized downstream, accumulating in large logjams and forming localized side channel, backwater, and riparian habitats that are used by a variety of organisms. Here, we map patterns of wood recruitment, mobility, and retention throughout the river network using aerial imagery (2013–2023) and pair these data with an intensive biodiversity assessment conducted at twelve logjam habitat complex- and three reference- sites during summer 2025. Using a combination of snorkel surveys and point counts, we quantified diversity and abundance of birds and fishes at each site. Our preliminary results indicate that logjam habitat complexes support 2.9 times higher overall fish density and 16 times higher juvenile fish density than reference reaches. Although mean fish species richness did not differ between site types, logjam complexes supported a greater number of unique species–age class combinations than reference sites (20.7 vs. 14.3), reflecting the increased juvenile density. Riparian bird abundance did not differ between site types; however, bird species richness was nearly two times higher at logjam sites, which supported an average of 11.6 species compared to 6.3 species at reference sites. Together, these data indicate that logjams and their associated habitats are important determinants of both aquatic and riparian vertebrate community structure. We are expanding upon this research by exploring the impacts of logjams and logjam-associated habitats on invertebrate communities as well as the structure of community interaction webs.