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The Effect of Dredging on Fish Communities in Agricultural Streams in Crawford, Sandusky and Seneca Counties of Ohio.

Selden, Justin D.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1372421206

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Science, University of Toledo, Biology (Ecology).
Agricultural streams provide infrastructure for flood control and are periodically straightened and dredged to maintain their efficiency to drain farm land. These streams also serve as headwaters and may provide important spawning and refuge habitat for native fish. Twenty study sites were selected in Sandusky, Crawford and Seneca counties (Ohio) and sampled for habitat and fish community variables in June and September during each of four years (2008-2011). Sites had to (1) be surrounded by agricultural land, (2) likely hold water in the summer, (3) lack canopy cover, (4) represent varying times since last dip-out, and (5) have landowner permission for access. I included streams from both lake plain and morainal regions. Measures of stream morphology, time-since-last-dredging and selected habitat variables were correlated with fish community metrics such as abundance, richness, Simpson’s Index, Shannon Diversity, and Index of Biotic Integrity. Fish communities were assessed using block seines in 50 m stream segments. Captured fish were identified to species, counted, assigned to an age class, inspected for gravidity and DELT, and released outside of the sampling segment downstream to prevent recapture. A total of 38,074 individual fish were sampled belonging to 35 species. Fathead minnow (10,068), creek chub (5,252), bluntnose minnow (4,737), central stoneroller (4,185), blacknose dace (3,942), blackstripe topminnow (3,803) and Johnny darter (1474) were most common and comprised 88% of the total fish catch. Non-native fish (wild goldfish, common carp, and mosquitofish) comprised only 0.1% of the total abundance. Adult fish data were combined into a June and September dataset to produce a more robust dataset and minimize pseudo replication. Channel morphology, expressed per site as the coefficient of variation of 11 wetted-stream width measurements (CoV-H) correlated weakly with year-since-last-dip-out (r=0.35, p=0.11) with a non-linear regression predicting only 14% of the variation. The coefficient of variation of 11 maximum water depth measurements (CoV-V) did not correlate with year-since-last-dip-out. Only IBI was significantly linked with CoV-V for the combined June and the combined September data (r=53, p=0.02; r=0.60, p=0.01, respectively). Using a non-parametric approach (Mann-Whitney), sites in morainal regions displayed a significantly higher CoV-V (z=3.08; p=0.002), whereas the difference in CoV-H approached significance (z=1.79; p=0.074). Lake plain and morainal sample sites did not differ in their year-since-last-dip-out (z=0.80; p=0.424) and IBI was the only fish community variable that was significantly higher in morainal streams than in lake plain sites for June and September (z=2.43; p=0.015 and z=2.28; 0.023, respectively). Cluster analysis did not produce obvious groupings based on physiography, location in the watershed or season of sampling. The fish community composition in each stream, however, is impacted by a multitude of biotic and abiotic factors that are difficult to separate. Agricultural streams provide habitat to a great number of fish and a substantial number of native species. Such environmental considerations should be considered in the management of these man-made streams.
Johan Gottgens, Dr. (Committee Chair)
Richard Becker, Dr. (Committee Member)
Kenneth Krieger, Dr. (Committee Member)
110 p.
Agriculture; Animal Sciences; Animals; Aquaculture; Aquatic Sciences; Biology; Biostatistics; Conservation; Ecology; Environmental Geology; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Geobiology; Geology; Hydrology; Natural Resource Management; Organismal Biology; Sustainability; Wildlife Conservation; Wildlife Management; Zoology
Agriculture; fish; community; morphology; stream; ditch; river; shiner; minnow; darter; sunfish; chub; stoneroller; dace; topminnow; Shannon Diversity; Simpson's Index; IBI; Index of Biotic Integrity; Richness; Abundance; dredge; coefficient of variation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Selden, J. D. (2013). The Effect of Dredging on Fish Communities in Agricultural Streams in Crawford, Sandusky and Seneca Counties of Ohio. [Master's thesis, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1372421206

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Selden, Justin. The Effect of Dredging on Fish Communities in Agricultural Streams in Crawford, Sandusky and Seneca Counties of Ohio. 2013. University of Toledo, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1372421206.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Selden, Justin. "The Effect of Dredging on Fish Communities in Agricultural Streams in Crawford, Sandusky and Seneca Counties of Ohio." Master's thesis, University of Toledo, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1372421206

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

toledo1372421206
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© 2013, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License The Effect of Dredging on Fish Communities in Agricultural Streams in Crawford, Sandusky and Seneca Counties of Ohio. by Justin D. Selden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Toledo and OhioLINK.