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<br />SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS <br />Native and non-natives fishes that occupy the lower Colorado River overlap broadly in <br />their physical habitat and resource uses. Spatio-temporal overlap was evident at all life <br />stages (larval, juvenile, and adult). Common resource uses involved critical life-history <br />functions such as feeding (subsuming maintenance and growth); however, a <br />substantially greater number and proportion of non-native fishes than native species <br />are piscivorous predators. Spatial, temporal and thermal aspects of spawning were <br />comparable among native and non-native fishes, notwithstanding requirements of cold- <br />vs warm-water taxa. Faunas were distinctive in mode of reproduction: native species <br />all are broadcast spawners without parental care, while non-natives are predominated <br />by nest-building and some level of parental protection of eggs and young. <br />No attribute of physical habitat or resource use can be identified that markedly or <br />marginally favors one group of fishes over another, and we cannot envision habitat <br />manipulations or features that could be made to accomplish such a goal. Rather, the <br />evidence supports an hypothesis that presence of non-native fishes alone precludes <br />successful life-cycle completion by components of the native fauna. This array of non- <br />native fishes now present has feeding, behavioral, and reproductive attributes that <br />allow it to displace, replace, or exclude native kinds. <br />The lower Colorado River is physically altered and hydrologically regulated. New <br />habitats created by dams include impoundments that represent large lakes, and <br />thermally depressed, downstream tailwaters. These are dramatically different from the <br />lower Colorado River before dams. Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to support <br />an argument that these habitats would be occupied by native fish communities, and <br />these native fishes would find resources necessary to life-cycle completion and <br />population maintenance, if there were no non-native fishes. It is absurd to suggest that <br />the Colorado River would be devoid of fishes if alien species had not been introduced <br />to the system.