Laserfiche WebLink
DISCUSSION <br />One-year old bonytail show strong preferences for high velocity habitats near the <br />substrate. This is consistent with morphological findings suggesting that the bonytail's <br />specialized features such as the narrow, elongate caudal peduncle, falcate fins, raised <br />nuchal hump and imbedded scales indicate it may have an advantage in swift water <br />environments. The small eyes and terminal mouth may have been adapted as a result <br />of the high sediment load of the Colorado River system (Minckley 1973). Approximately <br />90% of their time was spent in these habitats when they were alone. When red shiners <br />were present, bonytail spent virtually all of their time near the substrate. However, <br />because red shiners were often found in the higher velocity areas, bonytail showed <br />weak switches to using low-velocity habitats in the presence of red shiners. <br />Behaviorally, bonytail show very similar patterns to those observed for trout (citations <br />). The presence of red shiners did not significantly affect bonytail behavioral patterns in <br />these experiments and suggest that red shiners will have few effects on bonytail <br />(greater than 100 mm) in terms of substrate or velocity selection. <br />One-year old bonytail overwhelmingly prefered cobble substrate, regardless of whether <br />it was day or night. Based on observations, it seems that juvenile bonytail prefer any <br />substrate that is large enough for them to get under and hide. If this is so, their <br />preferred substrate size should be relative to the size of the fish. Therefore, this <br />suggests that larger fish will select for larger substrate or that larger fish may not be in <br />shallow shorelines or backwaters 24 cm deep. <br />One-year old bonytail also preferred to be at deep depths in substrate replicates that <br />included cobble treatments, and in fact they were found exclusively at deep depths, <br />regardless of whether it was day or night. However, in substrate experiments without <br />cobble treatments bonytail were observed at all depths in different frequencies. This <br />suggests that bonytail were selecting for cobble substrate over depth and the reason <br />that they were found at deep depths is directly related to the location of the cobble <br />24