Bigmouth buffalo movement, dam passage, and residency around potential bigheaded carps deterrent locations

In the Upper Mississippi River (UMR), dams can impede the longitudinal movement of native fishes. Although passage is feasible at many UMR dams under certain hydraulic conditions, pinch-point dams (e.g., Lock and Dam [LD] 14 and 15) rarely experience open-river conditions and often restrict upstream passage to the lock chamber - impeding access to upstream habitats. I tagged 180 bigmouth buffalo Ictiobus cyprinellus with VEMCO acoustic transmitters in pools 15–19 in the UMR to determine spatial movements, determine the residency and presence of bigmouth buffalo below two pinch-point dams, and summarize dam passages of bigmouth buffalo. Fine-scale arrays were placed in the locks to distinguish the route of fish passage and to calculate residency and presence in the downstream approach. I observed 12 (3 upstream, 9 downstream) bigmouth buffalo passages throughout 2020-2021. GLMMs were used to evaluate the relation between residency duration and environmental factors and lock operations. The best model at LD 14 indicated that bigmouth buffalo residency duration decreased as the number of upstream-bound commercial tows and recreational vessels increased. At LD 15 the most informative model indicated that an increase in the number of downstream-bound commercial tows was related to a decrease in bigmouth buffalo residency duration. Bigmouth buffalo minimum home ranges ranged from 0.14-114.06 km with an average of 16.27 km/year. I observed a low number of passages at pinch-point dams which is likely due to the low water levels throughout the study period which could be evidence that open-river conditions are vital to bigmouth buffalo passage at dams.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Natural Res & Env Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Sea, Bryan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lamer, James T
• Suski, Cory
• Fritts, Andrea

• Bigmouth Buffalo
• Native fish movement
• dam passages
• UMR
• bigmouth buffalo home ranges

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Bryan Sea

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116157

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116157