Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2011KY172B

Ordination of fish morphological characteristics to investigate intraspecific differences of largemouth bass and paddlefish due to the construction of modern navigation dams on the Ohio River, USA

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2011 Start Date: 2011-03-01 End Date: 2012-12-31
Total Federal Funds: $4,060 Total Non-Federal Funds: $8,120

Principal Investigators: Tamara Sluss

Project Summary: The objective of this research is to determine whether feeding morphology has changed within planktivorous (paddlefish) and a piscivorous (large mouth bass) fish species due to the construction of modern navigation dams on the mainstem Ohio River between Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH, USA. The research involves studying fish specimens in collections that span the construction of the McAlpine and Markland dams (in 1961 and 1964 respectively) through the analysis of digital imagery and ordination. Images and measurements of specimens from ORSANCO and Ohio State University will be collected and analyzed. We will determine whether there are morphological differences in fish species before and after modern dams were placed in the mainstem Ohio River using either Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCA) or Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling NMS (a.k.a. NMDS) with PC-ORD software.