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Interspecific Comparisons and the Potential Importance of Nutrient Excretion by Benthic Fishes in a Large Reservoir
Author(s) -
Gido Keith B.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(2002)131<0260:icatpi>2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - dorosoma , benthic zone , nutrient , gizzard shad , interspecific competition , biology , pelagic zone , limnetic zone , ecology , phosphorus , nutrient cycle , excretion , productivity , environmental science , fishery , chemistry , littoral zone , biochemistry , macroeconomics , organic chemistry , fish <actinopterygii> , economics , predation
Abstract Fishes can provide an important link between benthic and pelagic habitats by removing nutrients from sediments and excreting them into the water column. The relative importance of nutrients excreted by fishes to ecosystem productivity may vary among species and with abiotic conditions. I measured excretion rates of three benthic feeding fishes, gizzard shad Dorosoma cepedianum , smallmouth buffalo Ictiobus bubalus , and river carpsucker Carpiodes carpio , to examine the potential contribution of these species to the nutrient budget of a large southern reservoir. All species showed a significant relationship between log excretion rate and log body mass but no differences among species in the slopes or intercepts. For all species combined, the slope of the relationship was less than 1, suggesting a less than proportional increase in excretion rate with size. Using mean standing crop estimates from published cove rotenone surveys in Oklahoma, the nutrient loading to Lake Texoma by these fishes was estimated to be 0.0096 kg · ha −1 · d −1 for phosphorus and 0.3580 kg · ha −1 · d −1 for nitrogen. These values exceeded external nutrient‐loading rates from the watershed 12% and 43% of the time for phosphorus and nitrogen, respectively.