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Last modified
7/14/2009 5:02:32 PM
Creation date
5/17/2009 11:27:26 PM
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UCREFRP
UCREFRP Catalog Number
8007
Author
Modde, T.
Title
Fish Use Of Old Charley Wash
USFW Year
1997.
USFW - Doc Type
an assessment of floodplain wetland importance to razorback sucker management and recovery.
Copyright Material
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<br />Within Old Charley Wash, spatial and temporal resource partitioning may have occurred. <br />Although high variation was observed in capture rates, red shiners tended to be captured more <br />frequently in deeper, open water environments. Conversely, fathead minnows and green sunfish <br />showed little habitat preference, being collected in most habitats in equivalent numbers within <br />gear types. Sm~ll carp tended to be captured more frequently in shallow emergent and flooded <br />terrestrial vegetation than in deeper open water environments. Use of emergent vegetative <br />habitats by small carp is advantageous to avoid predators and also provides access to high <br />invertebrate/prey densities associated with macrophytes. Use of increased structural complexity <br />would reduce encounter rates with predators (Savino and Stein 1982). In addition, high densities <br />of small invertebrate organisms are associated with macrophytic vegetation that would provide <br />high prey densities (Whiteside et al. 1978). If age-O razorback sucker use similar habitat, <br />predation pressure from adult red shiners, green sunfish, and other predators would be reduced. <br />From a temporal prospective, age-O fathead minnows, red shiners and green sunfish appeared in <br />Old Charley Wash in late June or July, following peak numbers of zooplankton and after the <br />appearance of larval razorback sucker. <br />Despite the low numeric percent of juvenile razorback sucker collected in Old Charley <br />Wash, their collection was significant because, 1) they represent the greatest number of juvenile <br />fish ever reported in the Upper Colorado River Basin, 2) fish were collected in two successive <br />years, and 3) fish were able to survive through the period of greatest mortality among age-O fish. <br />Although it is likely that nonnative fishes reduced the numbers of age-O razorback sucker that <br />survived in Old Charley Wash, without the nursery habitat provided by the floodplain wetland it <br />is probable that no razorback sucker would have survived to the juvenile lifestage. Thus, age-O <br />razorback sucker survival may be first limited by habitat and secondarily influenced by predation <br />and competition. Capture of juvenile razorback sucker in successive years in Old Charley Wash <br />suggest a pattern of wetland use by razorback sucker larvae and that fish will continue to use <br />floodplain wetlands as nursery sites in the future if flows and access are provided. Lastly, <br />because razorback sucker survived and grew at similar rates to carp in the wetland indicated that <br />these fish can survive and grow in a floodplain wetland dominated by nonnative predators and <br />competitors. In 1994, three confirmed wild yearling razorback sucker were captured by Fish and <br />Wildlife Service personnel from L-3 pond in the Leota Bottoms complex on the Ouray National <br />Wildlife Refuge in 1994 (Vernal CRFP, unpublished data) in the presence of nonnative fishes in <br />depression wetlands. Because wild juveniles have been collected from multiple years from at <br />least two large wetlands, it is possible that razorback sucker recruitment may occur in other large <br />floodplain wetlands, despite the presence of large numbers of nonnative fishes. If it is assumed <br />that the same production of age-O razorback sucker per acre occurred in all large depression <br />wetlands in the Uintah Basin (according to the surface acreage listed. in Irving and Burdick <br />1994),362 and 582 wild, age-O razorback sucker would have been produced in the Unitah Basin <br />in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Although the size of fish collected while draining Old Charley <br />Wash (i.e. <125 nun) does not represent recruitment to the adult spawning population, this size <br />of fish has passed the age of greatest mortality (Weatherly and Gill 1987) and offers a potential <br />for recruitment heretofore considered absent. <br />Despite successful reproduction of razorback sucker in the Lower Colorado River Basin <br />reservoirs (Minckley et al. 1991), natural recruitment is prevented largely due to nonnative <br />predation (Marsh and Langhorst 1988). The majority of juvenile and wild recruited adult <br />razorback sucker that have been collected in the Lower Basin since the 1980's were found in <br /> <br />43 <br />
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