Growth and mortality of prairie stream fishes: relations with fish community and instream habitat characteristics

Abstract

– Few studies have been conducted to describe the age structure, growth rates and mortality of fishes in small stream ecosystems. The purpose of this study was therefore to determine age structure, growth rates and mortality (i.e., total annual mortality and, age‐specific mortality) of central stonerollers Campostoma anomalum, creek chubs Semotilus atromaculatus, red shiners Cyprinella lutrensis and green sunfish Lepomis cyanellus from 13 streams on Fort Riley Military Reservation, Kansas, using incremental growth analysis. Further, we were interested in determining the influence of fish community and instream habitat characteristics on growth rates. The age structure of central stonerollers, creek chubs, and red shiners was dominated by young individuals (i.e., less than age 2); however, over 60% of the green sunfish were age 2 to age 4. Mean total annual mortality was >60% for cyprinids and averaged approximately 44% for green sunfish. The age‐specific mortality of central stonerollers and red shiners was generally less than 45% between age 0 and 1 and increased to over 85% for fishes greater than age 1. Fish community characteristics (e.g., catch per unit effort of trophic guilds) and chemical habitat (e.g., total phosphorous) were not related to growth rates (P>0.05). Growth of central stonerollers was not significantly correlated with physical habitat (P>0.05). However, the growth increments of creek chubs, red shiners, and green sunfish were related to the amount of woody debris (e.g., total woody debris, log complex habitat; r>0.60; P≤0.05). The results of this study provide important information on the population dynamic rate functions of cyprinid and green sunfish populations in small prairie streams. Furthermore, these data suggest that woody debris is important habitat influencing growth of stream fishes.Note

Refuge habitats for fishes during seasonal drying in an intermittent stream: movement, survival and abundance of three minnow species

“…In an Ohio stream with two beaver dams, Storck and Momot (1981) found that a large percentage of the adult creek chub population moved upstream in spring and summer, but typically not more than 300 m. Hall (1972) also found upstream movement in creek chubs in a North Carolina stream and suggested most movements in the studied system were caused by the displacement of reach residents by migrants due to the small number of recaptures in upstream weirs. In a Kansas stream, Quist and Guy (2001) found creek chub total annual survival rate was 28%. However, their samples were dominated by young individuals (\age 2) and survival was over the entire year, whereas our study focused on older individuals ([age 1) during summer and early autumn.…”

“…Creek chubs are typically found around structure (e.g. undercut banks, boulders, root wads), and are mostly insectivores (Taniguchi et al 1998;Quist and Guy 2001). However, creek chubs can become weak to strong piscivores (depending on food availability) as they get larger, typically exceeding 125 mm TL (Schlosser 1988;Jenkins and Burkhead 1994;Pflieger 1997), and can also be cannibalistic (Copes 1978;Fraser and Cerri 1982).…”

Population Dynamics of the Sand Shiner (Notropis stramineus) in Non-Wadeable Rivers of lowa

“…However, a similar study of red shiner provides some basis for comparison. Quist and Guy (2001) found that age-1 red shiners experienced low morality (< 20%), but thereafter mortality rates were in excess of 85% in small Kansas streams. In our study, age-1 sand shiners had much higher mortality (85%) than reported for red shiner but still followed a similar trend of increasing mortality rates among age-2 and older fishes (92%).…”

“…Mean back-calculated lengths were calculated using the Dahl-Lea method (Summerfelt and Minckley 1969, Quist and Guy 2001, Morey 2004. Total annual mortality was estimated for each reach with a weighted catch curve (Miranda and Bettoli 2007).…”

Structure and function of large wood in Ozark headwater streams and its relationship to fish community structure

“…Both the blackside dace (C. cumberlandensis) and the Tennessee dace (C. tennesseensis) have been shown to use LW as cover (Dolloff and Warren 2003). Other studies have found that creek chub populations are influenced by the presence of woody structures (Quist and Guy 2001). Juvenile creek chub are insectivorous and are able to take advantage of macroinvertebrates that colonize LW, while adult creek chub are general carnivores, feeding opportunistically upon invertebrates and small fishes (Robison and Buchannan 1984).…”