Freckled Darter (Percina lenticula) And Other Fishes’ Usage Of Wood Pile Habitat

<p>Effectively sampling habitat with the proper techniques is essential for our understanding of the animals that use the habitat, both for individual species and entire species assemblages. <em>Percina lenticula</em> is a species of special concern in the state of Mississippi due to low numbers of historical records. This species is known to inhabit wood pile habitat in rivers, a habitat that has been under-sampled historically due to inefficiency with most commonly used gear. Seines are typically not effective at sampling wood piles, resulting in sampling bias underestimating the number of <em>P. lenticula</em> and potentially other species utilizing such habitats. This study used electrofishing techniques to sample wood piles near historical records of <em>P. lenticula</em> in the Pascagoula and Pearl River drainages to assess the status of the species and environmental predictors and species associations. We assessed wood pile size and complexity for differences in fish abundance, species diversity and evenness. We also assessed differences in overall fish species assemblages in these habitats due to variations in environmental factors, both in each wood pile and at the sites. We caught 21 <em>P. lenticula</em>, all from the Pascagoula drainage. We found <em>Etheostoma histrio</em> and <em>Percina sciera</em> to be positively associated with <em>P. lenticula</em>. Neither wood pile size nor complexity significantly influenced fish abundance, species diversity or evenness. We found water depth and velocity to drive species assemblage variation in the woody structure, and site size to drive assemblage variation of the sites.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Daun, Noah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jake Schaefer
• Kaitlin Baudier
• Matthew Wagner

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/961

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-2035