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4 <br />Methods and Results <br />All experimental trials were conducted in a recirculating water system at the <br />Klamath Tribe Native Fish Hatchery in Chiloquin, Oregon. Experimental fish tanks were <br />light blue, rectangular, 68 L Rubbermaid tubs (45 cm long, 40 cm wide, and 41 cm tall). <br />Water flowed into each tank at about 2 L f min, and flowed out via a centrally located <br />standpipe which was screened to prevent escape of larval fish. Water temperature <br />remained a fairly constant 17'C, which is within the range of ambient temperatures <br />reported in shoreline areas of Upper Klamath Lake by Buettner and Scoppettone (1990). <br />Trials one through five each ran for 14-18 hours, while trial six ran for 40 hours. Water <br />depths were maintained at about 27 cm except in trial six when it was decreased to 15 cm <br />in low water treatments. <br />Sucker larvae used in the experiments were spawned from adults captured in the <br />Sprague and Williamson Rivers in May, 1992. Fathead minnows were beach seined from <br />Upper Klamath Lake near Modoc Point in early June, 1992. Fathead minnows were <br />treated for a columnaris infection with 20 ppm nitrofurazone upon arrival at the hatchery. <br />Many fish died during the seining process in the lake, indicating that the infection was <br />well advanced. The nitrofurazone treatment successfully controlled the infection and all <br />remaining fathead minnows were healthy when used in the experiments two weeks later. <br />Trials one through five focused in part on assessing the influence of fathead <br />minnow gape width (i.e. maximum mouth width at full gape) on their ability to prey on <br />various sizes of sucker larvae. I measured gape widths to the nearest 0.1 mm on 50 <br />randomly selected, live fathead minnows (48-68 mm TL) using a hand ruler and <br />magnifying glass. Using the resulting frequency distribution, I stratified gape widths into <br />three groups: small (2.0-2.3 mm), medium (2.5-2.8 mm), and large (3.1-3.8 mm). <br />Fathead minnow gape width classes were then used as the three treatments in trials one <br />through five. <br />Tanks (experimental units) were randomly assigned to treatments (fathead minnow <br />gape width class in trials one-five) until there were three replicate tanks per treatment. <br />The percentage of larvae eaten in each tank was transformed to normality (aresine <br />transformation) and used in one-way ANOVA tests to assess differences among <br />treatment means. Statistical tests were performed using SYSTAT 5.0 (WdEnson 1990). <br />Statistical power was determined post hoc when the null hypothesis was not rejected <br />following methods of Cohen (1988). A severe outlier in trial 6 prompted use of a <br />nonparametric two-way ANOVA (Zar 1984) followed by multiple comparisons (Conover <br />1980). 1 followed the admonitions and suggestions of Yoccoz (1991) concerning