Patterns of Fish Growth along a Residential Development Gradient in North Temperate Lakes

By D. Schindler, Sean I. Geib, Monica R. Williams. Ecosystems, 2000

167 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT Residential development of lakeshores is expected to change a variety of key lake features that include increased nutrient loading, increased invasion rate of nonnative species, increased exploitation rates of fishes by anglers, and alteration of littoral habitats. All of these factors may alter the capacity of lakes to support productive native fish populations. Fourteen north temperate lakes were surveyed to examine how growth rates of two common fish species (bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus; largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides) varied along a residential development gradient. Size-specific growth rates for both species were negatively correlated with the degree of lakeshore residential development, although this trend was not statistically significant for largemouth bass. On average, annual growth rates for bluegill sunfish were 2.6 times lower in heavily developed lakes than in undeveloped lakes. This effect of lakeshore development on fish growth was not size specific for bluegills between 60 and 140 mm in total length. An index of population production rate that accounted for both the size-specific growth rate and the size distribution of fishes showed that bluegill populations were approximately 2.3 times less productive in highly developed lakes than in undeveloped lakes. Our results suggest that extensive residential development of lakeshores may reduce the fish production capacity of aquatic ecosystems.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c400dd0160a565f5166ab892cd23a9eadbdd4dec

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Citations in the corpus

Fish community and food web responses to a whole-lake removal of coarse woody habitat (2006, methodology): “The change in diet to less abundant and less energetically favorable prey foreshadowed the observed declines in largemouth bass growth rates and was consistent with trends reported by Schindler et al. (2000).”
Effects of large-scale anthropogenic development on juvenile lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris) populations of Bimini, Bahamas (2008, unknown): “The first method was a BACI analysis on the growth rates of juvenile lemon sharks in the NS, Sharkland (SL) and South Bimini (SB) nurseries before and after March 2001, as any changes in the growth rates of juveniles may indicate a broader change in the environment ( Schindler et al. 2000; Gilliers”
Habitat coupling in lake ecosystems (2002, background): “Therefore, the most plausible explanation for the reduced fish growth rates in highly developed lakes was in response to reduced productivity of littoral habitats associated with loss of large woody debris (Schindler et al. 2000).”
Whole-lake influences of littoral structural complexity and prey body morphology on fish predator–prey interactions (2006, background): “Therefore, refuge in the form of CWH and aquatic macrophytes may influence lake and fish productivity, fish community structure and the persistence of predator and prey populations (Schindler et al. 2000; Vander Zanden & Vadeboncoeur 2002; Scheuerell & Schindler 2004).”
The influence of littoral zone coarse woody habitat on home range size, spatial distribution, and feeding ecology of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) (2009, background): “The results of our study provide further support that CWH is a critical feature of lakes ( Schindler et al., 2000; Newbrey et al., 2005; Sass et al., 2006b).”
ECOLOGICAL FUTURES: BUILDING AN ECOLOGY OF THE LONG NOW1 (2002, background): “Fish growth rates are inversely correlated with development (Schindler et al. 2000).”
Assessing Future Ecosystem Services: a Case Study of the Northern Highlands Lake District, Wisconsin (2003, background): “Some fish appear to grow more slowly when the amount of CWD is limited (Schindler et al. 2000).”
Impact of lakeshore development on green frog abundance (2003, background): “Other studies in this same region have reported reductions in fish production capacity in lakes altered by development (Jennings et al., 1999; Schindler et al., 2000 ).”
Documented and Potential Biological Impacts of Recreational Fishing: Insights for Management and Conservation (2006, background): “…(Ostendorp et al., 1995; Radomski and Goeman, 2001) which in turn affected fish communities by changing the fish species richness (Trial et al., 2001), biomass (Radomski and Goeman, 2001), growth rates (Schindler et al., 2000), and the spatial distribution of fish (Scheuerell and Schindler, 2004).”
Ecology of freshwater shore zones (2010, background): “3; Schindler et al. 2000).”
Aquatic and terrestrial drivers of dragonfly (Odonata) assemblages within and among north-temperate lakes (2009, background): “Those structural changes might have consequences for a variety of animals in both the riparian and littoral (near-shore aquatic) zones (Bryan and Scarnecchia 1992, Schindler et al. 2000, Lindsay et al. 2002, Woodford and Meyer 2003, Butler and DeMay-nadier 2008, Henning and Remsburg, in press).”