Trends and Synchrony in Black Bass and Crappie Recruitment in Missouri Reservoirs

Abstract

Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides, Spotted Bass M. punctulatus, White Crappie Pomoxis annularis, and Black Crappie P. nigromaculatus are popular components of many large reservoir sport fisheries, and a better understanding of these populations and their dynamics would improve our management capabilities. We used long‐term datasets (13–37 years) collected from 15 Missouri reservoirs to assess temporal trends and synchrony in sport fish recruitment by using catch per unit effort of age‐1 (CPUE1) black bass Micropterus spp. during spring electrofishing (N/h) and CPUE1 of crappies Pomoxis spp. during fall trap‐netting (N/net‐night) as our index of recruitment. Although CPUE1 exhibited high interannual variation within a reservoir, time series analysis revealed only two significant trends for each of the black bass species, with all trends indicating increasing recruitment. White Crappie CPUE1 showed abrupt declines in all four reservoirs in the Osage River basin, with these declines occurring in different years in each reservoir. White Crappie CPUE1 in one northern reservoir and Black Crappie CPUE1 in all reservoirs appeared to be increasing over time. Within a species, some regional synchrony in CPUE1 occurred for Largemouth Bass, White Crappie, and Black Crappie but not for Spotted Bass. However, synchrony within a species was not universal and in some cases did not exist even among arms within large reservoirs. With few exceptions, there was little evidence for synchronous recruitment among species; those that occurred were among congeners. The lack of synchrony among black bass and crappie recruitment suggests that management practices designed to improve recruitment of one species may not enhance the recruitment of another species.

Using geography to infer the importance of dispersal for the synchrony of freshwater plankton

“…Other studies of synchrony in one freshwater body have also documented absent or minimal declines across greater distances than ours ( 100 km), as well as generally high levels of spatial synchrony for a variety of taxa (Grenouillet et al 2001, Michaletz and Siepker 2013, Seebens et al 2013, Lodi et al 2014. In contrast, synchrony is typically weaker between pairs of water bodies (Cattanéo et al 2003, Rusak et al 2008, Michaletz and Siepker 2013, and does decline with distance for some taxa (Rogers and Schindler 2008), though such tests are absent from other between-water body comparisons (Cattanéo et al 2003, Rusak et al 2008. Greater environmental and physical variation and much reduced dispersal between water bodies compared to within them seem likely to be the main reasons for lower average levels of synchrony between water bodies.…”

Water Body Type Influences Climate–Growth Relationships of Freshwater Drum

“…Researchers and managers should avoid assuming that relationships between the biology of fish (and other organisms) and climate are static across disparate types of environments. There is increased emphasis on the relationships between climate and fisheries (Kaeding 2012;Michaletz and Siepker 2013;Recsetar and Bonar 2013); however, if such relationships are water body-specific yet used to develop region-wide management activities, the results could be undesirable (McDermid et al 2013). Ideally, natural resource management agencies would develop ecosystem-specific or "classed" approaches to data collection and management initiatives; however, in many water-rich areas standardization remains a major challenge (Wehrly et al 2012).…”

Use of Environmental DNA to Detect Grass Carp Spawning Events

“…Harry S. Truman Reservoir (22,510 ha and approximately 196 km in length [22]) is a warmwater impoundment of the Osage River upstream of Lake of the Ozarks (another large impoundment) in west central Missouri (Figure 1). There are four main rivers that converge with the Osage River to flow into Truman Reservoir: Marais des Cygnes, Little Osage, Marmaton, and Sac rivers.…”

“…The instantaneous flux of eggs was calculated from the number of eggs captured, divided by the volume of water sampled and multiplied by the discharge at the nearest gage, thus obtaining an estimate of the total number of eggs in the drift at a point in time. Egg developmental stages for up to 30 eggs per sampling event were grouped into five categories (i.e., cell division (stage 1-9), blastula (stage 10-12), gastrula (stage 13-15), organogenesis (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26), and near hatching (stage 27-30); [2,23]). The proportion of eggs within each developmental stage was computed for each sampling occasion.…”