Habitat and Movement of Lake Sturgeon in the Upper Mississippi River System, USA

Abstract

Lake sturgeon Acipenser fluvescens, which are now protected from harvest, are considered rare in the upper Mississippi River and little information is available on the remaining populations. Transmitters were implanted into 31 lake sturgeon from two sites in the upper Mississippi River to describe their habitats and movement. The areas surrounding the tagging sites were core areas for both groups of lake sturgeon based on the high use (about 50% of locations by group) and frequent return to these areas by many of the tagged fish. Core areas contained sites with unique hydraulic characteristics, such that depositional substrates were common yet flow was present; these areas probably provide important feeding habitat for lake sturgeon. Minimal geographical overlap in range occurred between groups, suggesting that river reaches and associated core areas were unique to groups or substocks of fish. Lake sturgeon exhibited complex movement behaviors and had ranges of 3‐198 km (median, 56 km) during the study. Tagged fish moved both downstream and upstream through upper Mississippi River navigation dams. However, dams appeared to be intermittent barriers to upstream passage because upstream passage events (10 fish, 19 passages) were fewer than downstream events (13 fish, 35 passages). Extensive use of the Wisconsin River by one group of lake sturgeon tagged in the upper Mississippi River has implications regarding management of a threatened population that transcends regulatory boundaries. Our study indicates that lake sturgeon in the upper Mississippi River system share many movement and habitat use characteristics with populations in other systems. However, significant data gaps preclude development of cogent management strategies, including information on population numbers and dynamics, identification of spawning areas, relations between groups, and assessment of the effects of commercial navigation.

Reintroduction of Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) into the St. Regis River, NY: Post- Release Assessment of Habitat Use and Growth

“…Results of the four-year study also indicated that most lake sturgeon exhibit site fidelity; although they frequently make localized movements, they demonstrated a preference for certain areas (Barth and Ambrose 2006). Borkholder et al (2002) and Knights et al (2002) have documented similar findings.…”

Migration and Movement Patterns of Green Sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) in the Klamath and Trinity rivers, California, USA

“…Duration of holding ranged from 44 to 199 days. Extended periods of inactivity and restricted movement in discrete areas have been documented for several sturgeon species (Wooley and Crateau 1985; Kieffer and Kynard 1993;Moser and Ross 1995;Foster and Clugston 1997;Erickson et al 2002;Knights et al 2002). Gulf sturgeon did not move further than 0.6 km from holding sites (Foster and Clugston 1997).…”

Abundance and movement patterns of age-0 juvenile lake sturgeon in the Peshtigo River, Wisconsin

“…While movement patterns of adult lake sturgeon have been described for a variety of systems (e.g., Fortin et al 1993;Rusak and Mosindy 1997;McKinley et al 1998;Auer 1999b;Knights et al 2002), movement data on age-0 juveniles is less complete and has only been generated for large (>220 mm) fish using radio telemetry (Holtgren and Auer 2004;Benson et al 2005a). Utilizing markrecapture data would allow movement patterns of smaller (50 -220 mm) age-0 juveniles to be described.…”