Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) movement and survival after removal of two dams on the West Branch of the Wolf River, Wisconsin

Dam removals allow fish to access habitats that may provide ecological benefits and risks, but the extent of fish movements through former dam sites has not been thoroughly evaluated for many species. We installed stationary PIT antennas in 2016 and 2017 to evaluate movements and survival of brook t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology of freshwater fish 2020-04, Vol.29 (2), p.311-324
Main Authors: Easterly, Emma G., Isermann, Daniel A., Raabe, Joshua K., Pyatskowit, Joshua W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
brook trout
Colonization
Dam design
Dam engineering
dam removal
Dams
Damsites
Environmental risk
Fish
Fish populations
Freshwater fishes
Freshwater plants
Habitats
movement
multistate model
PIT tags
Refuges
Removal
Rivers
Salvelinus fontinalis
Survival
Transition probabilities
Trout
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Summary:Dam removals allow fish to access habitats that may provide ecological benefits and risks, but the extent of fish movements through former dam sites has not been thoroughly evaluated for many species. We installed stationary PIT antennas in 2016 and 2017 to evaluate movements and survival of brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis in the West Branch of the Wolf River (WBWR) in central Wisconsin following removal of two dams and channel modifications designed to promote fish movement. These changes provided access to lacustrine habitats that might provide suitable winter habitat or act as ecological sinks. We used multistate models to estimate transition probabilities between river sections, to determine whether brook trout: (a) moved between multiple river sections and (b) entered lacustrine habitats as seasonal refuges, but eventually returned to lotic habitat. We also used a Cormack‐Jolly‐Seber model to evaluate whether apparent survival of brook trout in the WBWR was comparable to other populations. Few fish moved among river sections or used lacustrine habitat (
ISSN:0906-6691
1600-0633
DOI:10.1111/eff.12516