Link to USGS home page

The Fishes of George Washington Carver National Monument, Missouri, 2003

ONLINE ONLY

By B.G. Justus and James C. Petersen

This document is available in Portable Document Format (PDF):  SIR2005-5128 (389 KB)
To view this document, you need the Adobe Acrobat® Reader installed on your computer.
(A free copy of the Acrobat® Reader may be downloaded from Adobe Systems Incorporated.)


Abstract

Fish were collected at six sites at George Washington Carver National Monument by seining and electrofishing during a base-flow period on July 17-18, 2003. Approximately 700 fish were collected and identified at the six sampling sites. Those individuals represented 17 species (and 1 hybrid) and 13 genera. The number of species collected at the five stream sites ranged from 9 to 12; a hybrid sunfish and 4 species were collected from a pond. Fish collected at stream sites were typical of small headwater streams and no species collected in this study are federally-listed threatened or endangered species. The three most common species were the southern redbelly dace, central stoneroller, and green sunfish.

Some differences existed between the assemblages (groups of species) collected in 2003 and in the previous inventories. Four of the 17 fish species collected in this inventory previously had not been collected at the monument. However, 11 species collected in one or more of the previous inventories were not collected in this effort. There is no indication that a change in environmental conditions is responsible for the absence of these species; more likely reasons are seasonal variability, extirpation, low population density, and misidentification.

Four species collected at George Washington Carver National Monument may be of special interest to National Park Service managers and others. The cardinal shiner and stippled darter are endemic to the Ozark Plateaus. The Arkansas darter is considered a species of conservation concern by the State of Missouri. The grass carp is an introduced species.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Figures
  1. Map showing location of sampling sites at George Washington Carver National Monument, 2003
Tables
  1. Site-specific information for six fish sampling sites at George Washington Carver National Monument
  2. Number of fish collected at six sampling sites at George Washington Carver National Monument
  3. Relative abundance of fish collected at five sampling sites at George Washington Carver National Monument
  4. Classification of fish collected at five sampling sites at George Washington Carver National Monument
  5. List of fish species expected to occur at George Washington Carver National Monument
  6. List of fish collected in five inventories at George Washinton Carver National Monument from 1983 to 2003

:
FirstGov button  Take Pride in America button