Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2015KY246B

Relationships between water quality and the fish community in Kentucky Lake

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2015 Start Date: 2015-03-01 End Date: 2016-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $4,614 Total Non-Federal Funds: $9,404

Principal Investigators: Timothy Spier

Abstract: A more thorough understanding of the Kentucky Lake fish community and its relationships with water quality could be gained by sampling smaller pelagic fishes. Since these smaller fishes are often not well represented in electrofishing or trap net samples, they must be captured via other methods, such as trawling. Samples will be collected from Kentucky Lake bi-weekly from March through October. Species richness, species diversity, total catch per unit of effort (all species combined), and mean fish length (all species combined) will be compared between 2 trawl types (surface and mid-water) across all dates. Water quality results for samples collected on the same dates will be investigated to determine potential relationships with the observed trawl catch rates in two locations (an embayment representing an agricultural/rural watershed and the main channel of Kentucky Lake).