Status and Habitat Use of <i>Scaphirhynchus</i> Sturgeons in an Important Fluvial Corridor: Implications for River Habitat Enhancement

Hintz, William D.; Glover, David C.; Garvey, James E.; Killgore, William D. S.; Herzog, David P.; Spier, Timothy W.; Colombo, Robert E.; Hrabik, Robert A.

doi:10.1080/00028487.2015.1131740

Cited by 14 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Increasing use and positive selection of secondary channel habitat were consistent with increasing stage but differed with temperature at both reaches. As observed by Herrala et al (2014), the lack of use of secondary channels at low stages when water depth was shallow and current velocities were reduced agrees with the repeatedly observed preference of adult pallid sturgeon for relatively deep water and moderate current velocities (Hintz et al, 2016;Snook et al, 2002;Spindler, Chipps, Klumb, Graeb, & Wimberly, 2012). We found pallid sturgeon occupied secondary channels at a relatively small range of current velocities with 50% of detections ranging from 0.7-1.2 m/s (Figure 7).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Pallid sturgeon seasonal habitat selection in a large free‐flowing river, the lower Mississippi River

et al. 2020

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Pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus (Forbes & Richardson, 1905, Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, 1905, 7, 37) are an endangered riverine sturgeon native to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and declining numbers have been attributed to multiple stressors, including habitat loss and alteration. The lower Mississippi River provides a useful context to assess pallid sturgeon habitat selection because, although altered for flood control and navigation, it provides a free‐flowing system with a diversity of habitats and a minimally altered hydrograph. A discrete choice model of data collected year‐round from two reaches for 3–5 years revealed changes in habitat selection across water temperatures and river stages representative of seasonal variation in habitat for 116 telemetry‐tagged pallid sturgeon. Natural bank, island tip, and secondary channel were positively selected and main channel, although frequently used, was avoided. The degree of selection varied among river stages, water temperatures, and reaches. Habitat selection appears to be strongly influenced by preference for locations with moderate depth (median 11.7 m; lower and upper quartiles 8.1 m and 16.3 m) and moderate current velocity (median 0.9 m/s; lower and upper quartiles 0.7 m/s and 1.2 m/s).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Pallid sturgeon seasonal habitat selection in a large free‐flowing river, the lower Mississippi River

et al. 2020

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“…For instance, a mark‐recapture experiment in the MMR recently suggested a population of roughly 1,500 pallid sturgeon (Hintz et al. ), an estimate slightly above our 95% lower bound of 1,200–1,300 fish ≥3 years old and likely to include similar age classes. A prior range‐wide estimate of 6,000–21,000 individuals (Duffy et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…It may also be confusing to compare lower bounds to estimates of mean abundance from other studies. For instance, a markrecapture experiment in the MMR recently suggested a population of roughly 1,500 pallid sturgeon (Hintz et al 2016), an estimate slightly above our 95% lower bound of 1,200-1,300 fish ࣙ3 years old and likely to include similar age classes. A prior range-wide estimate of 6,000-21,000 individuals (Duffy et al 1996) overlaps the 95% lower bound on population density in our study, although it is not clear what age classes were included in the wider estimate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

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Estimating abundance without recaptures of marked pallid sturgeon in the Mississippi River

Friedenberg

Hoover

Boysen

et al. 2018

Conservation Biology

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Abundance estimates are essential for assessing the viability of populations and the risks posed by alternative management actions. An effort to estimate abundance via a repeated mark-recapture experiment may fail to recapture marked individuals. We devised a method for obtaining lower bounds on abundance in the absence of recaptures for both panmictic and spatially structured populations. The method assumes few enough recaptures were expected to be missed by random chance. The upper Bayesian credible limit on expected recaptures allows probabilistic statements about the minimum number of individuals present in the population. We applied this method to data from a 12-year survey of pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) in the lower and middle Mississippi River (U.S.A.). None of the 241 individuals marked was recaptured in the survey. After accounting for survival and movement, our model-averaged estimate of the total abundance of pallid sturgeon ≥3 years old in the study area had a 1%, 5%, or 25% chance of being <4,600, 7,000, or 15,000, respectively. When we assumed fish were distributed in proportion to survey catch per unit effort, the farthest downstream reach in the survey hosted at least 4.5-15 fish per river kilometer (rkm), whereas the remainder of the reaches in the lower and middle Mississippi River hosted at least 2.6-8.5 fish/rkm for all model variations examined. The lower Mississippi River had an average density of pallid sturgeon ≥3 years old of at least 3.0-9.8 fish/rkm. The choice of Bayesian prior was the largest source of uncertainty we considered but did not alter the order of magnitude of lower bounds. Nil-recapture estimates of abundance are highly uncertain and require careful communication but can deliver insights from experiments that might otherwise be considered a failure.

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“…They are also a group of benthic fishes that regularly use sand dunes. The US federally endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus), for example, appear to use sand dunes in the Mississippi River basin of the central USA (Phelps et al, 2010;Hintz et al, 2016a;Hintz et al, 2016b). Decline of this endangered fluvial specialist is primarily attributed to habitat loss from river modifications throughout the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and several large tributaries (Keenlyne, 1989;Bramblett & White, 2001;USFWS, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Alluvial Sand Dunes Create Energetic Refugia for Benthic Fishes? An Experimental Test with the Endangered Pallid Sturgeon

Porreca

Hintz

Garvey

2017

River Research & Apps

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River modifications have altered critical habitats for fishes at a variety of spatial scales and caused global declines of many fluvial species. At small spatial scales (<1 m2), alluvial sand dunes, a ubiquitous habitat in highly modified rivers, are thought to provide energetic relief for benthic fishes in energetically costly riverine landscapes created by water flow. However, use of alluvial dune habitat is not well understood, and it is unclear whether dunes provide refuge that effectively reduces energetic costs. We designed a scale‐relevant experiment to examine the energetic responses associated with sand dune habitat in rivers. We tested whether the US federally endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus), a benthic fish commonly associated with sand dunes, experienced reduced energetic costs with different configurations of simulated sand dune habitat. We quantified mass specific oxygen consumption (MO2; mg O2 kg−1 h−1) using intermittent flow‐through respirometry for age‐0 sturgeon (140–170 mm) in front of a sand dune, behind a sand dune and in the absence of a sand dune at two velocities (25 and 50 cm s−1) commonly observed in field studies of sturgeon habitat use. Sturgeon displayed distinct station holding behaviours for each habitat configuration. Dune location did not affect energy expenditure, but sturgeon MO2 was on average 16–20% higher in the absence of a sand dune depending on dune configuration. MO2 was on average 14% higher at 50 cm s−1 compared with 25 cm s−1. Our results provide a potential mechanism for over two decades of research on why sturgeon and other benthic fishes exhibit selection for sand dune habitat in large rivers. Fishes that select main channel habitats may depend on energetic relief provided by sand dunes, especially when other forms of structure are not available. For this reason, alluvial sand dune habitat may be important to the persistence of benthic fishes in high flow environments. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Status and Habitat Use of Scaphirhynchus Sturgeons in an Important Fluvial Corridor: Implications for River Habitat Enhancement

Cited by 14 publications

References 55 publications

Pallid sturgeon seasonal habitat selection in a large free‐flowing river, the lower Mississippi River

Pallid sturgeon seasonal habitat selection in a large free‐flowing river, the lower Mississippi River

Estimating abundance without recaptures of marked pallid sturgeon in the Mississippi River

Do Alluvial Sand Dunes Create Energetic Refugia for Benthic Fishes? An Experimental Test with the Endangered Pallid Sturgeon

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