South Dakota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit 2008 Completed Projects

Mr. Ed Childers, Badlands National Park (right above), helped with administrative aspects of the Unit’s project on fishes of the Park and nearby streams. M.S. Student Nick Ahrens inventoried the fishes; reported new data on the biology of the sturgeon chub (Macrhybopsis gelida). Photo shows White River at low flow (small shallow braided channels through sandbars) near Badlands National Park. (National Park Service funding) Dr. Katie Bertrand (photo) and Assistant Unit Leader Steven Chipps conducted a risk assessment of aquatic nuisance species. They categorized 61 “species of concern” for South Dakota and labeled 13 species as “species of special concern” because of their threat to South Dakota’s aquatic habitat and biota. One group of species of special concern is the Asian carp. The photo shows Royce Bowman, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, holding a 76-lb big head carp captured in the Missouri River. (South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks funding)

South Dakota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

2008 Completed Projects

Increase in lake surface area during the wet period of the 1990s was related to walleye mercury concentrations. The elevated mercury concentrations are probably caused by increased inputs from atmospheric mercury deposition and increased rates of mercury methylation in flooded soils with subsequent decomposition of organic matter. Fertilization success of walleye eggs declined with increased mercury concentrations in water, according to laboratory studies conducted by Ph.D. student Trevor Selch. (Game, Fish and Parks funding)

Book signing by Ken Higgins, Dave Willis, Chuck Berry, and Steve Chipps (l-r), editors of History of Fisheries and Fishing in South Dakota; publisher was South Dakota Department of

Game, Fish and Parks; printer was South Dakota State

University. Habitat characteristics and benthic biota at Missouri River sites where juvenile pallid sturgeon were captured were different than those at sites where this rare sturgeon was not captured, thus allowing M.S. student Bryan Spindler (photo) and Assistant Unit Leader Steven Chipps to predict other potential sites where juvenile pallid sturgeon might be captured. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding)