Lake variability: key factors controlling mercury concentrations in New York State fish

A 4year study surveyed 131 lakes across New York State beginning in 2003 to improve our understanding of mercury and gather information from previously untested waters. Our study focused on largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleye and yellow perch, common piscivorous fish shown to accumulate high mercury concentrations and species important to local fisheries. Fish from Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve lakes generally had higher mercury concentrations than those from lakes in other areas of the state. Variability between nearby individual lakes was observed, and could be due to differences in water chemistry, lake productivity or the abundance of wetlands in the watershed. We found the following factors impact mercury bioaccumulation: fish length, lake pH, specific conductivity, chlorophyll a, mercury concentration in the water, presence of an outlet dam and amount of contiguous wetlands.     

Perfluorinated compounds in whole fish homogenates from the Ohio, Missouri, and Upper Mississippi Rivers, USA

A method for the analysis of 10 perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in whole fish homogenate is presented and applied to 60 fish samples collected from the Ohio, Missouri, and upper Mississippi Rivers in 2005. Method accuracy ranged between 86 and 125% with limits of quantitation between 0.2 and 10 ng/g wet weight. Intra- and inter-batch precision was generally ±20%. Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was the predominant compound identified in these samples, contributing over 80% of total PFC composition in the fish from these rivers, with median PFOS concentrations of 24.4, 31.8, and 53.9 ng/g wet wt in the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, respectively. Median PFOS levels were significantly (p = 0.01) elevated in piscivorous fish (88.0 ng/g) when compared with non-piscivorous fish (15.9 ng/g). The 10 samples with PFOS concentrations above 200 ng/g were broadly scattered across all three rivers, providing evidence of the widespread presence of this compound in these US waterways.     

Assessment of sediment concentration and nutrient loads in effluents drained from extensively managed fishponds in France

Expansion of aquaculture has increased concern over its environmental impact. The composition of effluents from intensive aquaculture is well documented, but few data on extensive aquaculture are available. During 12 draining operations, 523 water samples were collected downstream from six extensively-managed fishponds in northeastern France. Study ponds had surface areas of 2-620 ha and were managed for production of Cyprinids and Percids. Concentrations of total suspended solids, total phosphorus, and Kjeldahl nitrogen in effluents from the ponds were greatest during the final stage of draining. Loads of phosphorus were higher than those reported for effluents of more intensive aquaculture ponds in the USA, but the source of the potential pollutants was catchments and sediment rather than feeds and fertilizer. It will be necessary to reduce the water drawdown rate during the fishing stage and possibly implement other best management practices to prevent the TSS concentration from exceeding 1 g/L.     

Contaminants evaluation of Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas and Missouri,USA

At the new Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge in Linn County, Kansas, and Bates County, Missouri, USA, we evaluated long-lived contaminants before acquisition of the land for the refuge. We sampled sediments at 16 locations and fish at seven locations. The samples were analyzed for metals and for chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds. Selected sediment samples also were analyzed for aliphatic hydrocarbons. Arsenic concentrations in sediment samples from six locations were elevated compared to US norms, but arsenic was not detected in any fish composite. Mercury concentrations in largemouth bass from two locations were comparable to the 85th percentile concentrations in nationwide fish collections. Most sediment concentrations of other metals were unlikely to have detrimental effects on biota. No chlorinated hydrocarbons were detected in any sediment sample. Chlordane compound concentrations in fish composites from two sites at the eastern end of the sampling area were 0.127 and 0.228 μg/g wet weight, respectively, which are high enough to cause concern. Most aliphatic hydrocarbons detected were found at low concentrations and probably were natural in origin. We concluded that there are no serious contaminants concerns within the project area, but past use of arsenical pesticides may mean a legacy of elevated soil arsenic levels in parts of the area and some use of banned pesticides such as chlordane and DDT likely is still occurring near the refuge.     

Integrating Environmental Characteristics and Fisheries Management in Northern Finland River Impoundments

/ Three large rivers in northern Finland, the Kemijoki, Iijoki, and Oulujoki rivers, were dammed for hydropower generation in the 1940s-1960s. Due to differences in environmental conditions, these impoundments require detailed study to produce guidelines for fisheries management.Water quality, hydrology, vegetation, and geomorphology data of 16 impoundments were gathered. Shoreline land-use data were derived from maps, and fish assemblage data were collected by exploratory fishing and from the annual fishery statistics. The relations among environmental variables were studied, and a classification of the impoundments was developed by hierarchical cluster analysis. Consequently, three impoundment groups with different environmental characteristics were formed. Significant differences among impoundment groups were also detected in fish yield. We conclude that the variation in environmental conditions, together with differences in fish communities in the impoundments were important enough to justify the claim that impoundments of different types require different management strategies. KEY WORDS: Impoundments; River regulation; Fish assemblage; Water quality; Aquatic vegetation; Finland     

Land Use, Spatial Scale, and Stream Systems: Lessons from an Agricultural Region

We synthesized nine studies that examined the influence of land use at different spatial scales in structuring biotic assemblages and stream channel characteristics in southeastern Minnesota streams. Recent studies have disagreed about the relative importance of catchment versus local characteristics in explaining variation in fish assemblages. Our synthesis indicates that both riparian- and catchment-scale land use explained significant variation in water quality, channel morphology, and fish distribution and density. Fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages can be positively affected by increasing the extent of perennial riparian and upland vegetation. Our synthesis is robust; more than 425 stream reaches were examined in an area that includes a portion of three ecoregions. Fishes ranged from coldwater to warmwater adapted. We suggest that efforts to rehabilitate stream system form and function over the long term should focus on increasing perennial vegetation in both riparian areas and uplands and on managing vegetation in large, contiguous blocks. Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly sponsered by U.S. Geological Survey Biological Resources Division, the University of Minnesota, The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and the Wildlife Management Institute.     

Effects of discharge fluctuation and the addition of fine sediment on stream fish and macroinvertebrates below a water-filtration facility

A small, coastal stream in the San Francisco Bay area of California, USA, received the discharges from a drinking-water filtration plant. Two types of discharges were present. Discharges from filter backwashing were 3–4 times base stream flow, occurred 10–60 times per day, contained fine sediments, and each lasted about 10 min. The other discharge was a large, steady flow of relatively sediment-free water from occasional overflow of the delivery aqueduct which generally lasted several hours a day.Samples of invertebrates from natural substrates had significantly fewer taxa and lower density at the two stations below the backwash than at the two above. However, when stable artificial substrates were used, there were no significant differences among all four stations. The aqueduct apparently had no effect because the. invertebrate community at the station upstream of the backwash but downstream of the aqueduct was statistically similar to the station above the aqueduct. To test for acute toxicity, we exposed additional artificial substrates to short-term simulated backwash conditions. These exposures had no effect on invertebrate density or drift. Three-spine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations were also significantly reduced at the two downstream stations and were made up mostly of larger, adult fish. Prickly sculpins (Cottus asper), restricted to the most downstream station, were emaciated and had poor growth, probably as a result of scarce benthic food organisms. Artificial redds with eggs of rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) had significantly lower survival at two stations below the plant backwash (30.7% and 41.8%) than at the one above it (61.4%). Hatchery rainbow trout held in cages below the treatment plant from 7 to 37 days survived and continued to feed.Thus, the major effect of the water treatment plant on fish and invertebrates probably was not from acute toxicity in the discharges or the occasionally large discharge of clean water from the aqueduct, but was from the fluctuating backwash flows containing fine sediment that displaced small fish downstream and created unstable benthic substrates for invertebrates.The filter plant that we studied is a direct-feed type (that is, no sedimentation before filtration). These generally require greater frequencies of backwashing than do conventional plants and may therefore have greater biological impacts. Direct-feed plants are becoming increasingly popular throughout the world, for the most part because they are cheaper to build and operate. But if the associated biological problems are mitigated, then the cost savings of direct-feed compared to conventional plants may be lost.     

The Fish Fauna of the Doubs River Prior to Completion of the Rhine–Rhône Connection

/ The part of the Doubs River between Montbeliard and Dole (France), i.e., downstream from the confluence with the Allan River, will be affected by the Rhine- Rhone connection project. In order to improve the understanding of the Doubs ichthyofauna, aquatic environments of the Doubs were sampled by electrofishing. Fish diversity and the presence of some rheophilic species demonstrated the good ecological quality of some stretches of the Doubs. This quality was due to alternating areas with very diversified aquatic environments (riffles, islands and side-arms, backwaters) and a considerable range of flow velocities. The differences in the structure of the fish communities of the different types of aquatic environments were more qualitative (fish species) than quantitative (number of species and number of fish). However, the mean number of fish was statistically lower in the canals (Freycinet canal and channelized part of the Allan River) than in the main course and in the backwaters. The natural parts of the Doubs (unnavigable reaches) showed the most diversified environmental structure and had the most rheophilic fish communities. Thus, the rheophilic species were well represented, but they proved also the most vulnerable to river regulation. However, the most abundant fishes throughout the Doubs River were generalists with no special requirements for food sources or spawning substrate.KEY WORDS: Fish communities; Regulation; Restoration; Floodplain; Large ship canal; Doubs River     

Optimization of exergy and implications of body sizes of phytoplankton and zooplankton in an aquatic ecosystem model

Size appears to be an important parameter in ecological processes. All physiological processes vary with body size ranging from small microorganisms to higher mammals. In this model, five state variables — phosphorus, detritus, phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish are considered. We study the implications of body sizes of phytoplankton and zooplankton for total system dynamics by optimizing exergy as a goal function for system performance indicator. The rates of different sub-processes of phytoplankton and zooplankton are calculated, by means of allometric relationships of their body sizes. We run the model with different combinations of body sizes of phytoplankton and zooplankton and observe the overall biomass of phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish. The highest exergy values in different combinations of phytoplankton and zooplankton size indicate the maximum biomass of fish with relative proportions of phytoplankton and zooplankton. We also test the effect of phosphorus input conditions corresponding to oligotrophic, mesotrophic, eutrophic system on its dynamics. The average exergy to be maximized over phytoplankton and zooplankton size was computed when the system reached a steady state. Since this state is often a limit cycle, and the exergy copies this behaviour, we averaged the exergy computed for 365 days (duration of 1 year) in the stable period of the run. In mesotrophic condition, maximum fish biomass with relative proportional ratio of phytoplankton, zooplankton is recorded for phytoplankton size class 3.12 (log V μm³ volume) and zooplankton size 4 (log V μm³ volume). In oligotrophic condition the highest average exergy is obtained in between phytoplankton size 1.48 (log V μm³ volume) and zooplankton size 4 (log V μm³ volume), whereas in eutrophic condition the result shows the highest exergy in the combination of phytoplankton size 5.25 (log V μm³ volume) and zooplankton size 4 (log V μm³ volume).     

A simulation model for Japanese sardine (Sardinops melanostictus) migrations in the western North Pacific

A two-dimensional individual-based model coupled with fish bioenergetics was developed to simulate migration and growth of Japanese sardine (Sardinops melanostictus) in the western North Pacific. In the model, fish movement is controlled by feeding and spawning migrations with passive transport by simulated ocean current. Feeding migration was assumed to be governed by search for local optimal habitats, which is estimated by the spatial distribution of net growth rate of a sardine bioenergetics model. The forage density is one of the most important factors which determines the geographical distributions of Japanese sardine during their feeding migrations. Spawning migration was modeled by an artificial neural network (ANN) with an input layer composed of five neurons that receive environmental information (surface temperature, temperature change experienced, current speed, day length and distance from land). Once the weight of the ANN was determined, the fish movement was solved by combining with the feeding migration model. To obtain the weights of the ANN, three experiments were conducted in which (1) the ANN was trained with back propagation (BP) method with optimum training data, (2) genetic algorithm (GA) was used to adjust the weights and (3) the weights of the ANN were decided by the GA with BP, respectively. BP is a supervised learning technique for training ANNs. GA is a search technique used in computing to find approximate solutions, such as optimization of parameters. Condition factor of sardine in the model is used as a factor of optimization in the GA works. The methods using only BP or GA did not work to search the appropriate weights in the ANN for spawning migration. In the third method, which is a combined approach of GA with BP, the model reproduced the most realistic spawning migration of Japanese sardine. The changes in temperature and day length are important factors for the orientation cues of Japanese sardine according to the sensitivity analysis of the weights of the ANN.