The Role of Physical Fitness of Forage Fishes in Relation to their Vulnerability to Predation by Bowfin (Amia calva)
- 1 October 1967
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
- Vol. 96 (4) , 427-430
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1967)96[427:tropfo]2.0.co;2
Abstract
Combinations of small forage species, Notemigonus crysoleucas, Lepomis macrochirus, L. cyanellus, and Micropterus salmoides, were presented to bowfin. Forage species were acclimated to laboratory conditions to serve as controls, or were physically impaired by stress of seining, columnaris disease, parasitism and starvation. The measure of differences in vulnerability was determined by a selection index (Dice, 1949). Combinations of controls indicated a species difference in vulnerability to predation by bowfin. Combinations of controls and physically impaired L. macrochirus and M. salmoides showed the latter suffered a significant increase in vulnerability in all tests. The sluggish behavior of physically impaired fishes may have stimulated bowfin to attack because it prefers slow-moving or stationary prey.This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- THE SELECTION INDEX AND ITS TEST OF SIGNIFICANCEEvolution, 1949