Teresa Newton
Roger J. Haro
Steven J. Zigler
Mike Davis
Patricia R. Ries
2016
<ol id="aqc2590-list-0001" class="numbered">
<li id="aqc2590-li-0001">Vital rates such as mortality, growth, and recruitment are important tools to evaluate the status of threatened populations and identify their vulnerabilities, leading to enhanced conservation strategies.</li>
<li id="aqc2590-li-0002">Native freshwater mussels are a guild of largely sedentary, filter-feeding bivalves currently facing worldwide declines. Lack of recruitment has been identified as a major threat to mussel populations.</li>
<li id="aqc2590-li-0003">A mussel bed in the Upper Mississippi River was sampled for 5 years (2008–2012). A trend analysis showed a significant decline in the percentage of species with juvenile representatives.</li>
<li id="aqc2590-li-0004">Species were grouped into equilibrium and periodic life history strategies to assess past recruitment. Residuals from catch-curve regressions quantified past year-class strength of both strategists and <i>Amblema plicata</i> over a 13-year period (1994–2006), and identified strong and weak year-classes.</li>
<li id="aqc2590-li-0005">Generalized linear regression models containing July maximum discharge and April minimum discharge explained 64% of the variation in recruitment strength of <i>A. plicata</i>. The best model for the equilibrium strategists explained 86% of the variation in recruitment and contained the same variables as <i>A. plicata,</i> but also incorporated the 7-day minimum discharge. For the periodic strategists, the model containing the number of low-flow pulses and the mean duration of high-flow pulses explained 56% of the variation in recruitment strength.</li>
<li id="aqc2590-li-0006">Understanding variation in recruitment dynamics of native mussels and its relationship to river discharge will be useful in designing effective management strategies to enhance conservation of this imperilled fauna.</li>
</ol>
application/pdf
10.1002/aqc.2590
en
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Annual variation in recruitment of freshwater mussels and its relationship with river discharge
article