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1 ? <br />8 <br />Index, Dissertation Index Abstracts International, Masters Abstracts International, and <br />American Doctoral Dissertations provided 52 graduate degree documents based on <br />native fish species names (all selected, APPENDIX II Table 3). Our final reference list <br />comprised 416 citations published over a four-decade period, 1957 through 1997. <br />HABITATS IN THE LOWER COLORADO RIVER -- Aquatic habitats of the lower <br />Colorado River have been altered dramatically by human development of water <br />resources (Fradkin 1981). Most striking among changes are those associated with <br />construction and operation of high dams: creation of large lentic habitats represented <br />by impoundments, and perennially clear, cold tailwaters in downstream river reaches. <br />Also associated with dams and other river control structures are altered hydrologic <br />(magnitude and timing of flows) and sediment transport (volume and source) regimes. <br />These last parameters also have been profoundly influenced by land uses of tributary <br />watersheds, such as domestic livestock grazing, groundwater withdrawal, mining, <br />timber harvest, and urban development. Because of the over-riding effects of these by- <br />products of human occupation, there are essentially no natural segments remaining <br />along the mainstream lower Colorado River. <br />The following discussion is generalized and intended to provide only an overview of the <br />present-day lower Colorado River and its habitats. Although there are abundant <br />anecdotal and narrative accounts of the lower river, there have been few quantitative <br />studies of habitat per se, and fewer yet of habitat in context of fishes (see Minckley <br />1979, Hiebert and Grabowski 1985, 1987, and Marsh and Minckley 1985, 1987 as <br />important exceptions). Additional detail also can be found in Anderson and Prichard <br />1951, Jonez and Sumner 1954, Hoffman and Jonez 1973, USBR 1976 and 1996, <br />Priscu 1978, Paulson et al. 1980, Brown 1983, and USFWS 1997, and literature cited <br />therein.