Swimming Performance of the Threatened Leopard Darter in Relation to Road Culverts

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between swimming performance of the leopard darter Percina pantherina evaluated in the laboratory and current velocities measured at the ends of corrugated-pipe and open-box culverts through road crossings. We tested leopard darters at each of six current velocities ranging from 0 to 60 cm/s and measured burst frequency and distance. We used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyze burst frequency and total distance covered during a 10-min period and found that at a current velocity of 25 cm/s, fish swam more frequently and for greater total distances than at higher or lower velocities. When a nested ANOVA was used to remove variation due to individual fish, we found that distances of individual bursts also differed significantly and that fish in intermediate velocities had longer bursts. Current velocities in box and pipe culverts tended to be higher than the velocities measured in the lab, and several crossings had structural barriers, in addition to high current velocities. Although there is no evidence that culverts act as long-term barriers to migration or dispersal of leopard darters, they may prevent migratory activity during certain years, thereby negatively affecting localized populations.

The Swimming and Jumping Ability of Three Small Great Plains Fishes: Implications for Fishway Design

“…Brassy minnow and common shiners sprinted at similar speeds. Arkansas darter swimming performance was comparable with that of leopard darters Percina pantherina, which were able to sprint at velocities of 42 and 60 cm/s (Toepfer et al 1999). The roles of temperature, small body size, and swimming behaviors appear to be important in determining successful fish passage and should be considered when designing instream structures for Great Plains systems.…”

“…and Etheostoma spp. (Matthews 1985;Toepfer et al 1999), Sacramento suckers Catostomus occidentalis (Myrick and Cech 2000), and shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorhynchus (Parsons et al 2003). Small-bodied benthic fishes may use position-holding behaviors to navigate a fishway with average velocities exceeding their swimming performance, especially if the fishway has a thick boundary layer.…”

“…Because of the possible performance and behavioral differences between these well-studied species and smaller-bodied fishes, there is a genuine need to collect data on the swimming and jumping abilities of the latter. Although studies have begun to quantify the swimming performance of less frequently studied fishes (see Toepfer et al 1999;Adams et al 2000;Billman and Pyron 2005), we are not aware of studies that examine jumping abilities or behaviors of small-bodied fishes. The goal of this study was to quantify the swimming and jumping abilities of multiple small-bodied fish species and explore the implications of these results for fishway design.…”

Movement and Habitat Use by Mottled Sculpin After Restoration of a Sand-Dominated 1st-Order Stream

“…[Behlke et al, 1991] darters Etheostoma spp.) are generally more abundant downstream of culverts (Warren and Pardew, 1998;Toepfer et al, 1999;Bouska and Paukert, 2010). This is believed to result from net downward movement of fish that cannot readily return upstream.…”

Eco‐hydraulic Evaluation of a Whitewater Park as a Fish Passage Barrier

“…Average flow velocity is a widely used metric for fish passage assessment and design, and is typically applied by assessing whether the current velocity is a burst or exhaustive swimming barrier (Furniss et al, 2006;Mahlum et al, 2014). A burst swimming barrier occurs when the flow velocity is greater than the maximum swimming speed of the fish and an exhaustive barrier occurs if a fish cannot maintain a positive ground speed for an adequate duration to move through a velocity challenge prior to exhaustion (Beamish, 1978;Toepfer et al, 1999;Aedo et al, 2009). A review of the physical characteristics of WWP structures shows that they tend to be relatively short structures with distinct spatial zones of highflow velocity, indicating a high potential for burst swimming barriers.…”