Tim Smith

Here's where that work published. Birds are overlooked top predators in aquatic food webs. Author(s): Steinmetz, Jeff (jsteinmetz@life.uiuc.edu); Kohler, Steven L.; Soluk, Daniel A. Source: Ecology (Washington D C) Volume: 84 Issue: 5 Pages: 1324-1328 Published: May 2003 Abstract: Most freshwater food web models assume that fish occupy the top trophic level. Yet many diet studies and a few caging and artificial stream experiments suggest that birds may be top predators in many freshwater systems. We conducted a large-scale field experiment to test whether avian predators affect the size distribution and abundance of fish in two midwestern streams. We used a combination of netting and perches to manipulate predation by Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) and Belted Kingfishers (Ceryle alcyon), and measured the response in the fish assemblage. Bird exclusions caused significant increases in medium size classes of two common prey, striped shiners (Luxilus chrysocephalus) and central stonerollers (Campostoma anomalum). We show that these species of piscivorous birds can alter the abundance of common prey and thus need to be considered more fully when attempting to explain the structure of aquatic food webs. Address: Steinmetz, Jeff ; Center for Aquatic Ecology, Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA All three of these authors have left the INHS. I think Jeff is a professor in South Carolina now...not sure which school. See your PMs.

As stated here, this is incorrect. Maybe you mean non-military entitlement funds? If the larger point is that the government has to decide what to fund and you consider that hatcheries to be more important than social security or medicade that would be a constructive addition to the discussion (I don't agree with it, but it would make your point accurately)... ...but this kind of thing is probably at the limits of what's constructive before we head into the political ditch. I'm enjoying the exchange and I think it's interesting that there are people on both sides of this issue from both sides of the political spectrum. If we can refrain from making cartoon characters of ourselves or each other we'll probably learn something before we're done plus avoid having the topic shut down.

It would be a shame if the stocker trout program stayed on the government dole and the native species were left behind. Zach, I'd be glad to talk any time.

This issue has an unlimited number of interesting angles and I envy you the chance to sink your teeth into a project like that. I helped Jeff Steinmetz work on a similar project with effects of kingfishers on stream communities and he also measured cormorant predation on smolts on a project I did in California with steelhead. Jeff's an approachable guy if you ever want to track him down talk to him about herons.

This post focuses on the issues rather than real or assumed "agendas" and advances the discussion. The real issue here is potential re-administration of the hatcheries and it puts private and native/wild stocks more in the spotlight. Warm water fisheries won't thrive in a cold water environment. That idea needs to come off the table. This is true in the river. Trout probably do replace natives in hearts and minds and administrative decisions more than they should.

Big difference between spawning and growing to maturity. Smallmouth do best just under 25C. Smallmouth in Canada struggle with cold temperatures. More smallmouth would be in the mainstem now if that was suitable habitat. I agree the debate should be about the fishery and this is too complex to be a left/right issue. Should be lots of common ground.

Agreed that the tailwaters don't have many options other than stocked trout... ...but Dingle-Johnson (Wallop-Breaux) money can go more places than hatcheries that will improve the fishery.

Zach, as a practicing fisheries biologist I can assure you that it is more than possible to thrive professionally without federal hatcheries. Your interests as a biologist and the interests of the fishery are definitely not married to concrete raceways and if you're going to invest your life in that profession it's critical that you see that. Your livelihood and your fisheries are in considerably MORE danger if your only professional options revolve around government produced fish. I might sign that petition, but there's no reason to assume the worst if the hatcheries take a hit. As for the higher cost of fishing if the private sector takes a stronger role...you may be right, but economists normally take the opposite view.

That's my favorite study. The other ones say some minnows can tell if other minnows have been attacked or eaten and they avoid that spot with that smell.

Hunting and fishing have leveled out and declined but the interest in conservation is greater than it has ever been. Cathorn is on the losing end of this from now until forever.

I'm sure you're way ahead of all this, Joe, but here are a few citations you might find interesting while you're sorting out your experimental design. The last one has a sweet bibliography. LOCALIZED DEFECATION BY PIKE - A RESPONSE TO LABELING BY CYPRINID ALARM PHEROMONE Author(s): BROWN GE, CHIVERS DP, SMITH RJF Source: BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY Volume: 36 Issue: 2 Pages: 105-110 Published: FEB 1995 Times Cited: 57 References: 37 Citation Map Abstract: Fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) that have never encountered a predatory pike (Esox lucius), are able to detect conspecific alarm pheromone in a pike's diet if the pike has recently consumed minnows. It remains unclear how this minnow alarm pheromone is secreted by pike and if a pike is able to avoid being labelled as a potential predator by localizing these cues away from its foraging range. The first experiment determined that minnow alarm pheromone is present in pike feces when pike are fed minnows. Individual fathead minnows exhibited a fright response to a stimulus of pike feces if the pike had been fed minnows, but not if the pike had been fed swordtails, which lack alarm pheromone. Individual minnows also exhibited a fright reaction to alarm pheromone in the water (which contained no feces) housing pike which had been fed minnows, suggesting that alarm pheromone is also released in urine, mucous secretions and/or via respiration. The second experiment determined that test pike spent a significantly greater proportion of time in the ''home area'' of the test tanks (i.e. where they were fed) but the majority of feces were deposited in the opposite end of the test tank. By localizing their defecation away from the home or foraging area, pike may be able to counter the effects of being labelled as a predator by the alarm pheromone of the prey species. Damselfly larvae learn to recognize predators from chemical cues in the predator's diet Author(s): Chivers DP, Wisenden BD, Smith RJF Source: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR Volume: 52 Pages: 315-320 Part: Part 2 Published: AUG 1996 Times Cited: 118 References: 26 Citation Map Abstract: Chemosensory recognition of predators by naive prey may be facilitated if the predator's diet chemically 'labels' the predator. In a laboratory experiment, behaviour patterns were quantified in individual damselfly larvae, Enallagma spp., that had never been exposed to pike, Esox lucius, before and after exposing the damselflies to one of three chemical stimuli: water from a tank that held pike fed a diet of (1) damselflies, (2) fathead minnows, Pimephales promelas, or (3) mealworms, Tenebrio molitor. Damselflies decreased their frequency of feeding bites, head bends and moves in response to stimuli from pike fed damselflies and pike fed fathead minnows, but not to stimuli from pike fed mealworms. Damselflies are sympatric with fathead minnows in the population tested, and probably have many of the same predators. A response to stimuli from pike fed fathead minnows indicates that damselflies associate predation risk with stimuli from injured minnows. In a second experiment, responses of damselflies previously exposed to stimuli from pike fed one of the three treatment diets (damselfly, fathead minnow or mealworm) were tested for a response to stimuli from pike fed mealworms. Damselflies that had been exposed to stimuli from pike fed damselflies or fathead minnows in the first experiment responded to stimuli from pike fed mealworms in the second experiment, but damselflies exposed to pike fed mealworms in the first experiment did not. Thus (1) pike-naive damselflies may initially respond to chemical stimuli from pike based on stimuli of conspecifics or familiar heterospecifics in the pike's diet, and (2) damselflies can learn to recognize chemical stimuli of pike irrespective of the pike's recent feeding regime based on the initial association with damselflies or minnows in the pike's diet. © 1996 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Transmission of fright reaction between different species of fish Author(s): Krause, Jens Source: Behaviour Volume: 127 Issue: 1-2 Pages: 37-48 Published: 1993 Abstract: Awareness of predators in group living species can be brought about in two ways. Either an individual directly senses a predator itself or it gets indirect information by monitoring other group members which have detected a predator. In this paper, I demonstrate such information transfer between two species of fish. A mixed shoal of chub (Leuciscus cephalus) and sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) was presented with Schreckstoff, an alarm substance, wide-spread among cyprinid fishes. Sticklebacks are not sensitive to Schreckstoff and their behaviour was observed in the presence of naive and habituated chub. Naive chub responded to Schreckstoff with a strong and immediate fright reaction whereas habituated chub did not. Sticklebacks only displayed a fright reaction when associated with naive chub, which indicates that they can obtain information about a potential predator threat by monitoring the behaviour of the chub. This result suggests that shoaling with Schreckstoff-sensitive cyprinids can provide a benefit for sticklebacks. Chemical ecology of predator-prey interactions in aquatic ecosystems: a review and prospectus Author(s): Ferrari MCO (Ferrari, Maud C. O.)1, Wisenden BD (Wisenden, Brian D.)2, Chivers DP (Chivers, Douglas P.)1 Source: CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY-REVUE CANADIENNE DE ZOOLOGIE Volume: 88 Issue: 7 Special Issue: Sp. Iss. SI Pages: 698-724 Published: JUL 2010 Times Cited: 3 References: 298 Citation Map Abstract: The interaction between predator and prey is an evolutionary arms race, for which early detection by either party is often the key to success. In aquatic ecosystems, olfaction is an essential source of information for many prey and predators and a number of cues have been shown to play a key role in trait-mediated indirect interactions in aquatic communities. Here, we review the nature and role of predator kairomones, chemical alarm cues, disturbance cues, and diet cues on the behaviour, morphology, life history, and survival of aquatic prey, focusing primarily on the discoveries from the last decade. Many advances in the field have been accomplished: testing the survival value of those chemicals, providing field validation of laboratory results, understanding the extent to which chemically mediated learning may benefit the prey, understanding the role of these chemicals in mediating morphological and life-history adaptations, and most importantly, the selection pressures leading to the evolution of chemical alarm cues. Although considerable advances have been made, several key questions remain, the most urgent of which is to understand the chemistry behind these interactions.

Is this guano supposed to provide an actual "alarm substance" (shrekstoff) or just a chemical cue that the herons are there? And if you're aiming for the alarm substances, does it matter if the herons have been eating congeners? Is the idea to get enough...heron stuff...that your chances that something is eating cyprinids or other species that make alarm substances is statistically high? Might want to find rookeries near cyprinid-dominated streams if any of these are considerations.

But if something can survive on the free market, why take those jobs out of the public sector? Leave government resources for the things we need that AREN'T profitable. ....isn't that what a Libertarian would do?

This Cauthorn cat seems completely sold out to the ag lobby and has no love for conservation or the first concern for anything but making money for the ag industry. Here he is saying the MDRN is a failure because there are too many deer in the state. Here he's threatening a witness who came to Missouri to testify against the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Agro-business interests (notably Missouri agrobusiness interests) have made it all but impossible for farmers to get non-GMO soybeans in the entire Western Hemisphere (minus Brazil). Cross pollination to non-GMO seed lines is rampant and the organic and green producers I know trying to get their hands on non-GMO feeds are finding that more and more difficult. Shrimp farmers who want to use non-GMO soybeans for their feeds so they can comply with ecocertification standards are looking at a 25% mark-up. Some of them may have to opt out simply because they can't afford it. Pile Cathorn's regular support for ethanol on top of that and it's pretty clear he's just another pork barrel politician with an under-developed sense of ethics and lots of buddies with deep pockets at Monsanto.

Then you might be of some use on the Columbia River.

Link's not working for me, Ollie. You can follow the overall federal budget debate on any of the main networks. Looks like there may be another government shut down before this one is over. I guess the hatchery guys will have to show up for work whether or not they get a paycheck or everything will die.

The ladders work fine and there is spawning habitat available. Most of the mortality associated with the dams occurs in the big reservoirs while the smolts are migrating out to sea. Temperature is a problem there, yes, but predation is too. Not only does the power company have to collect the smolts at the spillways in barges and ship them (!) downstream (which is just as grossly inefficient as it sounds), the eastern exotics piled up in the reservoirs and in the tailwaters eat the smolts like popcorn on movie night. In those big expanses of slack water, the smolts can't easily find their way downstream and they get hammered by predation pretty badly until they wander around enough to get lucky and find the outlet. ...and of course, there are those who will say the dams are just fine and it's all the Native Americans and their fisheries treaties along the coast and Japanese out at sea that are killing all the salmon. Some how they'll eventually find a way to blame the Mexicans and African Americans too, I'm sure. Just give them some time.

The dams in the Pacific Northwest are the biggest reason wild salmon are taking the beating they are, but most of them are not going anywhere. The big push to get those taken down has been more or less ineffective. Maybe the anti-dam sentiment resulted in some new dams getting delayed, but the big ones that do the most damage haven't been touched. Even the very worst non-hydroelectric systems on the Snake survived a Clinton administration push to get them taken down in 1999. The hatchery system presides over it all, propping up the busted fishery and letting everyone pretend things are super on the Federal teat and that it's too expensive to manage for wild fish anyway. As long as they have fish from somewhere, they can pull in tourists from out of state...just like the Ozark tailwaters. The average person in Seattle hates nukes and is pretty happy with their hydroelectric power. None of that is going to change any time soon. The biggest threat to hydroelectric power in the PNW is the gradual loss of glacial melt. According to my brother who works at one of those power companies, they're engaged in long range planning to deal with the eventual loss of much of their current levels of discharge caused by the topic which shall not be mentioned. Just sayin'.

Sorry. No help on the taxidermy here. A good picture seems to be the current trend. Might keep your wife/sig. other happier too. Temperate bass taste ok if you take out the bloodline. Agree they are pretty awful if you don't.

I'm afraid I agree with Justin here. I vastly prefer native smallies to stocked trout. I'm also a big proponent of dam removal (and if you aren't, get your butt off the bank and FISH instead of just sitting in that big scour hole and staring at a bobber) but the dams that are coming down are the smaller less functional ones. No one I know is aiming at the bigger targets. The reality is that the huge infrastructural monsters will never be intentionally removed. Grand Coolie, Hoover, TVA and these hydroelectric impoundments in the Ozarks all do important economic work along with their significant environmental damage. Maybe some of the more damaging impoundments on the Snake will eventually go (and I'd support that), but even that's a long shot. I'd love to join Muddy on that float, but it's just never going to happen. Maybe you have a choice about how to administrate the "bread and circus" trout fishery in the tailwaters, but you're definitely stuck with the dams.

I see your point better now, SIU. Thanks for being patient while I get up to speed on the details. According to Fishes of Champaign County they were in the Vermilion from the first time Forbes sampled them. I don't see evidence the Wabash tribs were carefully sampled until well into the 20th century so I couldn't comment on how widespread they were then. Interestingly too, smallmouth have always been in the Kaskaskia, and spots have always been in the Embarras right next door. Neither species has poked their nose into their neighboring drainages. I hope the people who are making decisions about inland fisheries research and "Voldemort" adaptation are thinking about how to deal with future range expansions of this species.

Actually, no. That data base is pretty spiffy, but it's incomplete. Philip Smith's Fishes of Illinois shows Micropterus punctulatus in the Embarras River (and 3 other Southeast Illinois drainages) prior to 1908, and Larimore and Smith's Fishes of Champaign County show it both the Embarras and the Vermilion (Wabash Drainage) before the turn of the century as well. There is no record of smallmouth in the Vermilion or the Embarras at that time but they have become the dominant Micropterus species in the Vermilion since that time (except in low gradient, fine substrate areas where spots take over). No smallmouth have ever occurred in the Embarras. Also, while the INHS samples every year, it doesn't sample every system every year. In the late 19th and eary 20th century, the spatial and temporal spacing between samples was pretty wide. At that time the sampling effort primarily consisted of Stephen Forbes and a few others and they were stretched quite thin. It would be pretty hard to exclude spotted bass from many Illinois systems based on Stephen Forbes effort simply because he couldn't get around to them. And to be frank, sampling technologies for abundance have not advanced tremendously. We have a variety of electrofishing packages now, but those leave gaps in the sampling record and you're better off with a minnow seine if you're sampling for things like darters. You're badly limited in water over 10 feet deep with electrofishing. Rotenone has been around for a long time as has dynamite, bottom trawls, fish weirs, fyke nets, trammel nets, cast nets, pop nets, hook and line...I guess underwater cameras and acoustic gear are new but those aren't much help in Illinois' murky water even today and acoustics aren't useful for species ID unless you know what you're looking for. It takes multiple gears over multiple years and a little bit of luck to get a complete record of the species in a system. Discussions about reasons for expansions are important and a lot of fun but they require a significant grain of salt.

??What's all the passion for if this isn't an argument over native vs. exotic origin?? Why does it matter if the fish came from a small remnant population or a few transients? That's not really a question you can answer with certainty...although both you and OB have good points about sampling. They aren't completely inclusive as you say, but OB's right that over time they do approach the true representation of species using the system. Either way, what are the repercussions of either scenario if the issue isn't over whether these fish are native or not? I don't see any.

...and one of the few species I've caught that will get hooked....fight a bit and get off...then chase the bait and get hooked again on the same cast. Weirdly aggressive.

Interesting thread. You should advocate directly for the hatcheries here if you're leaning that way, Dano. Plenty of good reasons to do so and it's certainly the most direct route toward keeping trout densities high. Do you think people should join Friends of Norfork Hatchery?