Striped Bass Habitat Selection Rules in Reservoirs without Suitable Summer Habitat Offer Insight into Consequences for Growth

Autor: James A. Rice, Jessica S. Thompson, D. Scott Waters
Rok vydání: 2010
Předmět:
Zdroj: Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 139:1450-1464
ISSN: 1548-8659
0002-8487
DOI: 10.1577/t09-140.1
Popis: The traditional view of habitat requirements for inland striped bass Morone saxatilis suggests that these fish need dissolved oxygen (DO) levels above 2–3 mg/L and temperatures below 25°C to thrive. However, striped bass are found in reservoirs where hypolimnetic hypoxia forces them into warm temperatures (27–30°C) for much of the summer, and contrary to expectations, these populations do not consistently experience poor growth or mortality. We used telemetry of adult striped bass in Badin Lake, North Carolina, to characterize habitat selection by striped bass in systems with unsuitable summer habitat. As summer stratification developed, striped bass selected preferred temperatures of 20–23°C as long as the DO was at least 2 mg/L. Once hypoxia forced striped bass into warmer water, the fish concentrated at the top of the oxycline (defined as the depth just above the largest decline in DO occurring over a 1-m change in depth), which was 1–2°C warmer but had greater DO levels (4–8 mg/L) than the co...
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: