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<br />Introduction <br />Native fish faunas around the world are increasingly at risk due, at least partially to the <br />introduction of nonnative fish predators. Recent reviews suggest that virtually every continent <br />now has documented cases of species extinctions due to nonnative introductions (Grossman 1991; <br />Fernando 1991; Growl et al. 1992; Townsend and Winterbourn 1992; Allan and Flecker 1993; <br />Ng et al. 1993). For many freshwater systems with newly introduced predators, at least some <br />species are hypothesized to be at risk, though data are lacking on long-term population trends <br />(Miller et al. 1989). In systems that have undergone multiple invasions by potential nonnative <br />predators, assigning potential importance is often methodologically difficult. This situation is <br />exacerbated when species of concern are already rare and/or considered endangered. <br />Quantifying nonnative predator effects has traditionally been accomplished by three methods. <br />The simplest and least certain approach involves mapping spatial and temporal species <br />distributions. The underlying premise is that if a predator overlaps in space and time with <br />target prey species, predation is a likely outcome. This approach does not allow direct <br />quantification of predation pressure. A second method involves estimating volume or biomass <br />of stomach contents and the rate of gastric evacuation to compute daily rations of predators for <br />specific prey items (Elliot and Person 1978; Canine 1987). This method is labor-intensive, <br />requiring large numbers of predators over diet and longer time periods to obtain good estimates <br />of prey consumption. The final method involves direct experimentation using ponds, cages or <br />some form of enclosure/exclosure design to directly measure predation rates on specific prey <br />types (Cooper et al. 1991). This method has the distinct advantage of directly estimating <br />predation rates, but is not acceptable for examining predator/prey interactions involving <br />