Fragmentation and fish passage: can fishways mitigate discontinuities in Great Plains fish communities?

dc.contributor.authorPennock, Casey A.
dc.date.accessioned2016-11-18T22:53:51Z
dc.date.available2016-11-18T22:53:51Z
dc.date.graduationmonthDecember
dc.date.issued2016-12-01
dc.description.abstractFishways are a common tool for mitigating the effects of habitat fragmentation on fish communities, but their utility in low-gradient, sand-bed rivers of the Great Plains is not well studied. The Lincoln Street Fishway on the Arkansas River became operational in 2015 and was built specifically to pass small-bodied threatened fishes. We used a combination of surveys up-and downstream of the barrier and tagging experiments to test the ability of fishes to move into and through the fishway. Differences in fish community structure up- and downstream of the dam were more pronounced prior to the construction and operation of the fishway. In particular, Emerald Shiner Notropis atherinoides was absent from collections upstream of the dam before fishway construction, but commonly collected upstream in 2015 and 2016 surveys. Surveys within the fishway structure revealed 29 species, or 74% of the total species captured during our study were using the fishway. To further quantify fishway passage, we used a VIE experiment to assess if fish marked downstream of the fishway moved into or upstream of the fishway. Although we did not recapture marked fish upstream of the fishway, some marked individuals moved into the fishway. Finally, we conducted a PIT tag experiment to evaluate short distance movements within the fishway for three species of small-bodied minnow and were able to document upstream movement across a gradient of flows through the fishway. Results from our study illustrate the potential for fishways to mitigate the effects of habitat fragmentation on small-bodied fishes in sand-bed rivers.
dc.description.advisorKeith B. Gido
dc.description.degreeMaster of Science
dc.description.departmentDepartment of Biology
dc.description.levelMasters
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2097/34557
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherKansas State University
dc.rights© the author. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subjectArkansas River
dc.subjectKansas
dc.subjectFishway
dc.subjectFish ecology
dc.subjectDams
dc.subjectCommunity structure
dc.titleFragmentation and fish passage: can fishways mitigate discontinuities in Great Plains fish communities?
dc.typeThesis

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