Examining Natural Gas Development and Fish Communities of the Fayetteville Shale, Arkansas

The emerging use of natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing is a new and understudied anthropogenic disturbance to aquatic ecosystems. In spring 2012, we sampled 13 sites throughout the Fayetteville Shale within the Boston Mountain and Arkansas Valley ecoregions. Fishes were sampled quantitatively using backpack electrofishing and three-pass depletion at multiple riffle-pool units per site. We examined fish species richness, fish density, percent sensitive taxa, percent darters, and percent green sunfish  Lepomis cyanellus in relation to increasing gas well density.  Proportional abundance of sensitive taxa ranged from 19.5 to 63.0% and was negatively correlated with gas well density (r= -0.86, p=0.03). Proportional abundance of darters ranged from 6.1 to 63.0% and was negatively correlated to gas well density (r= -0.76, p<0.01).  Proportional abundance of  L. cyanellus ranged from 1.31 to 23.57% and was positively correlated with gas well density (r= 0.66, p=0.01). Preliminary results suggest a negative response in some community level variables to natural gas development.  In spring 2013, we will resample the sites to determine if these correlations persist.   Data from spring 2012 and spring 2013 will be presented.