Figure 2 - uploaded by Seoghyun Kim
Content may be subject to copyright.
Each nest was active for a median of 2 days (range = 1-4). Multiple active nests were typically documented on a single day in Todd Creek (median = 3 nests, range = 1-8), but a single active nest was most frequently located in Indian (median = 1 nest, range = 1-5)
Contexts in source publication
Context 2
... 34) were located during the study period ( Figure 2). The first active nests were observed on April 17th in Sixmile Creek (14.7°C) and on April 25th in Indian (15.8°C) and Todd Creek (17.1°C). ...
Context 3
... first active nests were observed on April 17th in Sixmile Creek (14.7°C) and on April 25th in Indian (15.8°C) and Todd Creek (17.1°C). Spawning and Sixmile Creek (median = 1 nest, range = 1-2; Figure 2). Spawning was observed periodically (Figure 2) at median intervals of 4 days in Indian Creek (range = 1-10) and Sixmile Creek (range = 3-7) and 6 days in Todd Creek (range = 3-7). ...
Context 4
... and Sixmile Creek (median = 1 nest, range = 1-2; Figure 2). Spawning was observed periodically (Figure 2) at median intervals of 4 days in Indian Creek (range = 1-10) and Sixmile Creek (range = 3-7) and 6 days in Todd Creek (range = 3-7). ...
Context 5
... Creeks, as indicated by narrower ranges of water level changes centered around zero on days with active nests ( Figure 6). This result indicated that flow stability was an important criterion for bluehead chub to spawn and flow fluctuation caused by precipitation hampered spawning (Figure 2). ...
Context 6
... River Basin; Wallin, 1989Wallin, , 1992. Water temperature in Indian Creek was colder than the other streams (Figure 2). However, the mean and range of water temperature when fish spawned were similar to the other streams because stream temperature on days with active nests was significantly higher than that on days without active nests in Indian ...
Context 7
... chub and yellowfin shiner exhibited periodic spawning patterns, but intervals of spawning events varied over the spawning season (Figure 3). Furthermore, although the peak timing was May, fish still spawned intermittently until late June (Figure 2). ...
Context 9
... 34) were located during the study period ( Figure 2). The first active nests were observed on April 17th in Sixmile Creek (14.7°C) and on April 25th in Indian (15.8°C) and Todd Creek (17.1°C). ...
Context 10
... first active nests were observed on April 17th in Sixmile Creek (14.7°C) and on April 25th in Indian (15.8°C) and Todd Creek (17.1°C). Spawning and Sixmile Creek (median = 1 nest, range = 1-2; Figure 2). Spawning was observed periodically (Figure 2) at median intervals of 4 days in Indian Creek (range = 1-10) and Sixmile Creek (range = 3-7) and 6 days in Todd Creek (range = 3-7). ...
Context 11
... and Sixmile Creek (median = 1 nest, range = 1-2; Figure 2). Spawning was observed periodically (Figure 2) at median intervals of 4 days in Indian Creek (range = 1-10) and Sixmile Creek (range = 3-7) and 6 days in Todd Creek (range = 3-7). ...
Context 12
... Creeks, as indicated by narrower ranges of water level changes centered around zero on days with active nests ( Figure 6). This result indicated that flow stability was an important criterion for bluehead chub to spawn and flow fluctuation caused by precipitation hampered spawning (Figure 2). ...
Context 13
... River Basin; Wallin, 1989Wallin, , 1992. Water temperature in Indian Creek was colder than the other streams (Figure 2). However, the mean and range of water temperature when fish spawned were similar to the other streams because stream temperature on days with active nests was significantly higher than that on days without active nests in Indian ...
Citations
... Bluehead chub and creek chub (Family Leuciscidae) are taxonomically and ecologically similar to one another in terms of diet (opportunistic generalists that consume aquatic plants and a diversity of invertebrates), and body morphology (Rohde et al., 2009). These three species also overlap in reproductive timing (March-June) where striped jumprock has been observed to spawn first, followed closely by creek chub and bluehead chub (Kim & Kanno, 2020). ...
Identifying environmental drivers of demographic variation is key to predicting community‐level impacts in response to global change. Climate conditions can synchronize population trends and can occur both spatially for populations of the same species, and across multiple species within the same local community. The aim of this study was to investigate patterns of temporal variation in survival for freshwater fish communities in two geographically close but isolated sites and to understand the amount of variation accounted for by abiotic covariates including metrics of water temperature and stream flow. Using mark‐recapture data, we estimated bi‐monthly apparent survival in a Bayesian Cormack‐Jolly‐Seber framework. The model included random effects to quantify temporal variance to understand species synchrony with the rest of the fish community and between sites. Study species included bluehead chub (Nocomis leptocephalus), creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus), and striped jumprock (Moxostoma rupiscartes) in the southeastern USA. Results showed that survival varied over time and periods of low survival were associated with higher mean water temperature. However, temporal patterns of survival differed among species and between sites, where survival was synchronous among species within a site but asynchronous between sites for the same species despite their spatial proximity. Study streams differed in summer thermal regimes, which resulted in contrasting summer survival patterns, suggesting sensitivity of these fishes to warming. We found that interspecific synchrony was greater than spatial synchrony, where regional drivers such as temperature may interact with local habitat leading to differences in survival patterns at fine spatial scales. Finally, these findings show that changes in the timing and magnitude of environmental conditions can be critical in limiting vital rates and that some populations may be more resilient to climate variation than others.
... season (late April-late July 2021; Kim & Kanno, 2020). Once located, nests were marked on the nearest bank and assigned a unique identification code. ...
Ecosystem engineers facilitate beneficiary species by ameliorating physical habitat. The stress‐gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts the importance of facilitation in communities should increase with physical stress but has rarely been tested in freshwater. Bluehead Chubs ( Nocomis leptocephalus ) build gravel nests for spawning, which can reduce negative effects of sedimentation for lithophilic species including invertebrates and other taxa. Our goal was to test the SGH using chubs and benthic assemblages as a model system. We surveyed assemblages in chub nests, paired unmodified substrate and reach‐wide samples in 10 Piedmont streams in South Carolina, USA, placed across a gradient of sedimentation. Based on the SGH, we predicted benthic assemblage diversity in chub nests would show no relationship to increasing embeddedness but that diversity in unmodified substrate should decrease with embeddedness. We found that taxa counts, richness and Shannon diversity were higher in chub nests than unmodified substrate but were lower than reach‐wide samples. Canonical correspondence analyses indicated benthic assemblages differed between nests and unmodified substrate, but assemblages in both microhabitats were nested subsets of the more diverse reach‐wide assemblage. Contrary to our hypotheses, diversity in both microhabitats decreased significantly with substrate embeddedness but was consistently higher in nests. While substrate modification by chubs clearly facilitated benthic diversity at the microhabitat scale, it was not sufficient to overcome the worst effects of sedimentation. This study provides mixed evidence for SGH in streams; chub nesting appears to be facilitative at the microhabitat scale but may not have reach‐wide effects on benthic assemblages in this system.
... Although some males build nests alone, co-breeding leads to larger mounds and higher mating success [89,90]. A potential direct benefit of co-breeding for both sexes is that eggs from conspecifics dilute the predation risk [91]. Hypothetically, a large nest may also attract more nest associates, further diluting the predation risk. ...
Among ray-finned fishes that provide parental care, many spawn in constructed nests, ranging from bowls, burrows and ridges to nests made of algae or bubbles. Because a nest by definition is a construction that enhances the nest-builder's fitness by helping it meet the needs of the developing offspring, nest-building behaviour is naturally selected, as is a preference for spawning with mates that provide well-built nests. However, nest-building behaviour can also be sexually selected, when nest traits increase mating success, protect against sperm competition or nest take-overs by conspecifics. Here, we offer a systematic review, with examples of how competition for sites and location of fish nests relates to sexual selection. We examine direct and indirect benefits of mate choice linked to nest traits, and different types of nests, from a sexual selection perspective. Nest-related behaviours are often under both natural and sexual selection, and we disentangle examples where that is the case, with special attention to females. We highlight some taxa in which nest building is likely to be sexually selected, but lack of research has left them uninvestigated. Some of them are established aquarium species, making them particularly amenable for future research. Finally, we compare with arthropods, amphibians and birds.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolutionary ecology of nests: a cross-taxon approach’.
... Our results generally match the larvae count peak seen in Twelvemile Creek after accounting for hatching time. Spawning of the dominant leuciscid species, Hybopsis rubrifrons, Nocomis leptocephalus, Notropis hudsonius and Notropis lutipinnis (Marion 2014), occurs from April to June (Rohde et al. 2009;Kim and Kanno 2020). Hatching of leuciscid eggs, such as Nocomis micropogon, is reported to occur 5-6 days after fertilization and measured 5.7-6.1 mm after hatching (Cooper 1980). ...
Understanding habitat use and nursery areas of larval fish is a key component to managing and conserving riverine fishes. Yet, freshwater researchers often focus only on adult fishes, resulting in a limited understanding of the habitat requirements for the early life stages of freshwater fishes. The goal of this study was to quantify the larval fish microhabitat use of three fish families in Twelvemile Creek, a fifth-order tributary of Lake Hartwell (Savannah River basin) in the Piedmont ecoregion of South Carolina, USA. We used handheld dipnets to sample larval fishes along 20 equidistant transects spaced 10 m apart weekly from May to July 2021 along a 200 m stream reach. We also collected microhabitat data at each larval fish capture location. Most captured individuals were in the metalarval stage and were identified to the family level. A partial distance-based redundancy analysis indicated that water velocity contributed to changes in larval fish assemblage structure. Larval fishes occupied a subset of the available habitat that was characterized by low water velocity, non-Podostemum substrate, and shallow habitats close to the shore or bed rock structure. We also detected temporal patterns in larval fish counts, with peak Percidae and Leuciscidae counts in late July and the highest Catostomidae counts in late May–early June. Our results suggest that larval fishes select habitats with low water velocity and shallow habitats close to shore microhabitat characteristics, and that riffle-pool sequences may serve as a nursery habitat for Percidae, Catostomidae and Leuciscidae metalarvae.
... For fishes, some species' response to increased temperatures is earlier spawning (e.g., three-spine stickleback; Hovel et al. 2017), while others may spawn earlier under colder conditions in order to maximize the possible window for egg and young-of-year development (e.g., bull trout; Life-history cue alterations in streams Austin et al. 2018) or have reduced access to spawning grounds (Strange 2010). Other species may respond more to the rate of change in temperature, rather than any absolute value (Kim and Kanno 2020). ...
Life history events, from mating and voltinism to migration and emergence, are governed by external and historically predictable environmental factors. The ways humans have altered natural environments during the Anthropocene have created myriad and compounding changes to these historically predictable environmental cues. Over the past few decades, there has been an increased interest in the control temperature exerts on life history events as concern over climate change has increased. However, temperature is not the only life history cue that humans have altered. In stream ecosystems, flow and light serve as important life history cues in addition to temperature. The timing and magnitude of peak flows can trigger migrations, decreases in stream temperature may cause a stream insect to enter diapause, and photoperiod appears to prompt spawning in some species of fish. Two or more of these cues may interact with one another in complex and sometimes unpredictable ways. Large dams and increasing impervious cover in urban ecosystems have modified flows and altered the timing of spawning and migration in fish. Precipitation draining hot impervious surfaces increases stream temperature and adds variability to the general pattern of stream warming from climate change. The addition of artificial light in urban and suburban areas is bright enough to eliminate or dampen the photoperiod signal and has resulted in caddisfly emergence becoming acyclical. The resulting changes in the timing of life history events also have the potential to influence the evolutionary trajectory of an organism and its interactions with other species. This paper offers a review and conceptual framework for future research into how flow, temperature, and light interact to drive life history events of stream organisms and how humans have changed these cues. We then present some of the potential evolutionary and ecological consequences of altered life history events, and conclude by highlighting what we perceive to be the most pressing research needs.
... Research on the phenology of terrestrial-aquatic interactions has focused on the timing of marine subsidies of salmonid carcasses on terrestrial consumers (Lisi and Schindler 2011, Deacy et al. 2016, Rubenstein et al. 2019, whereas timing in subsidies of emergent aquatic insects on riparian consumers are relatively unstudied (Larsen et al. 2016). Another biotic interaction that may warrant investigation is the interaction between nest building and nest associate fish species as shifts in the phenology of either species could alter synchronous spawning with its mutualistic partner (Kim and Kanno 2020). Our review indicates that the implications of potential shifts in these positive interactions is largely unknown. ...
Phenology changes are increasingly recognized as a common response of species to ongoing global change. Phenology can be influenced by environmental cues that impact the initiation or duration of life history events as well as intrinsic organismal traits that may affect how different species respond to such environmental cues. Despite the importance of phenology for biodiversity conservation as demonstrated by terrestrial and marine research, freshwater phenology is understudied. Therefore, we conducted a literature review on freshwater phenology research to summarize the spatial, taxonomic and temporal biases of studies; as well as relationships between phenology metrics, environmental cues and intrinsic species traits studied in these systems. We find that phenology research in freshwaters may be limited by a lack of long‐term time‐series data, especially in lotic habitats. Phenology metrics studied differed between lotic and lentic habitats, with limnological research focused on planktonic population growth whereas macroinvertebrate emergence and fish spawning seasons are the most frequently studied aspects of phenology in streams and rivers. Across habitats, temperature is the most investigated environmental cue, with additional research attention to resources and hydrology in influencing phenology events in lentic and lotic environments, respectively. Knowledge gaps in contemporary freshwater phenology research include relationships between phenology and environmental cues in tropical systems, understanding of non‐salmonid fish phenology and testing hypotheses related to intrinsic traits. We recommend that future research broaden the biological, spatial and temporal scales of phenology studies in these systems, and make use of novel data sources, methods and technologies to address contemporary research gaps.
... I did not analyze spawning dates on which spawning events occurred following oocyte maturation and ovulation (cf. Kim and Kanno 2019). ...
... TT and PP were predictive control factors (cues) influencing the initiation of gonadal development in advance of reproduction and the continuation of gonadal activity during the reproductive season (Munro (1990). TT also served as a modifying factor to advance or delay reproductive readiness and synchronize the reproductive cycle with environmental conditions, whereas daily or short-term stream temperatures might have served as a synchronizing cue for active spawning during the reproductive season (Bye 1984, Kim and Kanno 2019, Munro 1990). Gonadal and ovum development can cease when exogenous predictive cues no longer persist or endogenous responsiveness to predictive and synchronizing cues ceases to occur (Munro 1990). ...
The extent of annual variation in reproductive seasons of subtropical and temperate fishes and the relationship with varying environmental conditions is not wellunderstood. I investigated the initiation and termination of the spawning season in Notropis longirostris (Longnose Shiner) over a 9-year period in south-central Mississippi and analyzed the influence of photoperiod and thermal time (thermal history) on reproductive readiness (reproductive condition). Reproductive readiness of females across years was related to photoperiod and thermal time, but there was also a significant interaction between these factors reflecting their changing importance during the initiation and termination of reproduction. Thermal time and photoperiod showed an equally strong relationship with reproductive readiness during the initiation phase, whereas photoperiod was a better predictor of reproductive readiness during the termination phase. The beginning of the reproductive season varied more among years than did the end of the reproductive season. The difference appears to be the result of greater annual variation in prevailing environmental temperatures at the beginning than at the end of the reproductive season and the role of photoperiod during the termination of the spawning season. Overall, thermal time appears to synchronize the reproductive cycle with environmental conditions; however, photoperiod eventually outweighs the influence of thermal time. Further investigations of variation in reproductive cycles vis-à-vis environmental variability will facilitate efforts to understand the influence of climate change.
... Shiner abundance, an ordinal variable, was defined as the maximum number of individuals observed during a single daily observation. Shiner spawn on the same nest for more than one day (Kim and Kanno 2020), and different individuals could be present on different days. However, shiner individuals could not be uniquely identified and the maximum number of shiner individuals served as a measure of attractiveness and carrying capacity of a chub nest. ...
... The diagram represents tests for biotic variables (i.e., male body size and nesting behavior) playing pivotal roles in the potentially intricate network. We included only one abiotic variable (i.e., day of year) in the path diagram because it was significantly correlated with other abiotic variables including water temperature and level (Appendix S1A), which affect finescale spawning periodicity of chub spawning (Kim and Kanno 2020). In general, water temperature increased and water level decreased through time in the study period (Appendix S1). ...
Nest construction by males is a common reproductive strategy in fishes, but little is known about intra-specific variation in nesting behavior and reproductive interactions with other species. In the southeastern USA, reproductive interactions between bluehead chub (Nocomis leptocephalus) and their nest associate, such as yellowfin shiner (Notropis lutipinnis), are mutualistic because the shiner requires chub nests to spawn but the chub also benefits from additional shiner eggs by reducing predation risk on their own eggs (i.e., dilution effect). As proxies for reproductive success of bluehead chub, we studied factors affecting their nest size variation and utilization by yellowfin shiner in three streams in the upper Piedmont region of South Carolina, USA. A total of 92 nests (71 spawned and 21 abandoned) were located, and we recorded spawning activity, nest size, number and size of male bluehead chub, number of yellowfin shiner, and environmental variables for 89 consecutive days in 2016. Path analysis showed that larger males spawned earlier in the season than smaller males, and instances of pebble re-use for nest construction increased through the spawning season, which extended from April to June. Larger males more likely shared the same nest with each other than smaller males, and larger or more males constructed larger nests and attracted more yellowfin shiner. Nest size also increased when males re-used substrate materials from old nests, and nests built in this manner (36 nests) were equally prevalent as newly constructed nests (35 nests). This study suggests that complex mechanisms mediate host nest size and interactions with nest associates, and individual variation likely shapes dynamics of the mutualistic reproductive interaction.
Nesting animals require information about their environment to place nests in optimal locations. This information can either be derived from an animal's previous experiences (private information), or it may be gained through the observation of the success of conspecifics (public information). This use of public information to locate suitable nesting sites has been explored in birds but not fishes. Many fish construct nests to protect their offspring, and the utilisation of public information could be a suitable strategy for determining which nesting locations would maximise fitness. We studied public and private information use in the bluehead chub, a species of nesting leuciscid in the Southeastern United States, by observing nesting activity and measuring habitat variables along a 0.65 km reach of Toms Creek in Blacksburg, Virginia. We clustered activity data and created generalised linear models to determine if bluehead chubs construct nests within discrete nesting periods during the spawning season and if they use public or private information to select nest sites between these periods. Our results suggest that bluehead chubs construct nests periodically within a single spawning season and use a combination of public and private information when determining suitable nesting sites from one nesting period to another. This study provides some of the first evidence suggesting public information use for nest site selection in a species of fish and opens up a new frontier of research into public information use among fishes.
Prey species often congregate in groups to detect and evade predators, yet not all group members benefit equally. We observed the nesting aggregations of bluehead chub ( Nocomis leptocephalus ), where one nest “hosts” as many as several hundred “nest associates.” We predicted that the male chub exploits the aggregation in a manner consistent with selfish‐herd theory – specifically, by locating itself in the safest location within the aggregation (the centre) and using the aggregation to reduce its own vigilance requirements.
Vigilance was measured as the time it took the host (male) chub, first chub female and first individual of each associate species to return to the nest under differing associate abundances (hypothesised to be inversely related to risk) following a simulated predator scare. Spatial position was investigated by digitising host movement and overlaying it with the aggregation and nest's spawning pit area.
We used information theoretic statistics to analyse the effect of aggregation characteristics on the return time of chub and their nest associates. The best‐supported model included both species composition and abundance (inverse of risk) as predictors of return time. Hosts returned last under nearly all scenarios and the aggregation as a whole took longest to return in high‐risk environments. The 95% and 99% confidence ellipses of host spatial position contained the centroids of the aggregation and spawning pits, respectively, for all nests analysed ( n = 11).
We conclude that the host locates itself at the centre of both the aggregation and the spawning pit area of the nest, and that the host uses the aggregation to reduce its own vigilance requirements. These results support our hypothesis that hosts use their nest associates to disproportionately decrease their risk of predation during spawning.
This is the first study to show any mixed‐species fish spawning aggregation as a selfish shoal, and to identify bluehead chub as a selfish participant in the mutualistic reproductive interactions that they host.
