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Swimming abilities of juvenile estuarine fishes: implications for passage at water control structures

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Abstract

The capability of early life history stage fishes to access nursery habitat within managed salt marshes is dependent on their ability to negotiate water control structures (WCSs). Knowledge of swimming ability and hydrodynamic preferences is essential to assess the impact of WCSs on fish movement in managed marshes. These data, however, are lacking for many common estuarine fishes, and the utility of the data for the few species examined thus far is limited. We examined critical swimming speeds and derived linear relationships between fish size and swimming speed for juveniles of six common estuarine fish species of the southeast U.S. and northern Gulf of Mexico coasts. White mullet Mugil curema displayed the greatest swimming ability among these six species and was able to swim against currents ≥ 30 cm s−1 higher than the other species examined at the same size. The remaining species displayed lower critical swimming speeds and were classified into groups of moderate (pinfish Lagodon rhomboides, striped mullet Mugil cephalus) or slow (silver perch Bairdiella chrysoura, spotfin mojarra Eucinostomus argenteus, spot Leiostomus xanthurus) swimmers. Our results suggest that high-flow conditions at WCSs would likely preclude the passage of all but the largest juvenile fishes, and passage for most juveniles would occur under low-flow conditions; these flows at WCSs are dictated largely by site-specific tidal and weather conditions.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries. We thank H. Finley and R. Pausina from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, as well as D. Kusher and A. Schwab from Wofford University for their assistance. Support for A. Richards was provided by the Cornell College Rogers Fellow in Environmental Studies program. This research was conducted in accordance with the guidelines set forth in the University of South Carolina IACUC Animal Care and Use Protocol #2153‐100816‐033114. The suggestions of A. Chester and two anonymous reviewers improved the manuscript. The findings, conclusions, and recommendations presented in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service. This is contribution #70 from the Marine Education and Research Center in the Institute for Water and Environment at Florida International University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Baruch Marine Field Laboratory, University of South Carolina, Georgetown, SC, 29442, USA

    Matthew E. Kimball, Elizabeth K. Berwaldt & April R. Richards

  2. Marine Sciences Program, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, North Miami, FL, 33181, USA

    Kevin M. Boswell

  3. NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC, Estuarine Habitats & Coastal Fisheries Center, Lafayette, LA, 70506, USA

    Lawrence P. Rozas

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  1. Matthew E. Kimball
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  2. Kevin M. Boswell
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  3. Lawrence P. Rozas
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  4. Elizabeth K. Berwaldt
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  5. April R. Richards
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Correspondence to Matthew E. Kimball.

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Kimball, M.E., Boswell, K.M., Rozas, L.P. et al. Swimming abilities of juvenile estuarine fishes: implications for passage at water control structures. Wetlands Ecol Manage 26, 383–390 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-017-9580-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-017-9580-9

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