Long Term Monitoring of Dynamic Occupancy of Shoal Dwelling Fishes in the Tallapoosa River Basin

In 2005, a change in flow management at a large dam was initiated as part of an adaptive management strategy on the Tallapoosa River in east-central Alabama. Since then we have monitored patterns of species occupancy for a suite of fish species to evaluate potential response to the change in flow regime and to inform the next iteration of adaptive management. Using a multiple model comparison approach, we compared various dynamic occupancy models for a suite of fish species and incorporated model uncertainty into parameter estimates using model-averaging. Several darter and one minnow species demonstrated little to no support for dam effects. Results for Alabama shiner Cyprinella callistia, Tallapoosa shiner C. gibbsi, and lipstick darter Etheostoma chuckwachatte indicated potential positive responses to change in flow management. Up to five species – largescale stoneroller Campostoma oligolepis, Alabama hogsucker Hypentelium etowanum, speckled madtom Noturus leptacanthus, redbreast sunfish Lepomis auritus, and muscadine darter Percina smithvanizi – demonstrated potential negative responses. Based on these results, species life history traits, and other current research, we hypothesize that an altered thermal regime may be inhibiting occupancy of several fish species. The inference garnered from the long-term data will assist in the next iteration of adaptive management.