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Note: Session titles beginning with an asterisk (*) have student presenters.
AUTHORS: Wade Massure, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources; Timothy Grabowski, U.S. Geological Survey; Tom Arsuffi, Texas Tech University
ABSTRACT: Drought and flow regime alteration have the potential to affect fish growth through numerous mechanisms and in so doing, can greatly influence demographic processes, such as recruitment and mortality. Changing climate patterns and increasing water demands from a rapidly growing human population has made understanding these effects critical to the conservation and management of stream fishes on the Edwards Plateau in central Texas. The objective of our study was to evaluate the influence of annual flow regime on the growth rates of a suite of stream fishes within a paired river systems in central Texas. The North Llano River (NLR) and South Llano River (SLR) are adjacent low-order, spring-fed streams of similar size that differ greatly in their flow regimes due to differences in spring inflows and anthropogenic water withdrawals. The NLR and SLR provided a natural experiment to evaluate the influence of annual flow regime on growth in systems experiencing the same climatic conditions, such as the recent drought, but differing in their degree of flow alteration. We collected otoliths from eleven stream fish species common to both the NLR and the SLR and back-calculated lengths at age. We used mixed-effect models to evaluate the influence of annual flow regime on growth. We will present the results evaluating the effects of drought and altered flow regime on the growth of seven species. Our results indicated that species response to annual flow regime, particularly drought conditions, was species specific and varied between the two river systems. Our results will provide a better understanding of how drought coupled with anthropogenic alterations affect the overall growth rate of stream fishes and will help improve decisions made for the management and conservation of stream fishes, particularly those related to water management and instream flows.
Tuesday October 31, 2017 4:40pm - 5:00pm EDT
French