Movement and tag evaluation of two prairie fishes in Oklahoma, USA, October-June (2018-2020)

The first portion of this dataset provides the survival, retention, and growth of Emerald Shiner Notropis atherinoides (EMS) tagged with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags and Arkansas River Shiner Notropis girardi (ARS) tagged with visible implant elastomer (VIE), PIT, and micro transponder p-Chip tags. Experiments were undertaken in the laboratory at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA July 2018-March 2020. Emerald Shiner was initially tagged as a surrogate for Arkansas River Shiner to reduce the usage of this federally threatened species; however, we suspected that Emerald Shiner was not a suitable surrogate for Arkansas River Shiner due to low recaptures in the first field season. Thus, Arkansas River Shiner tagging was conducted. The EMS experiment examined the survival, retention, and growth of Emerald Shiner tagged with PIT tags over 90 days. ARS experiment 1 examined the survival, retention, and growth of Arkansas River Shiner tagged with VIE and PIT tags over 120 days. ARS experiment 1 also examined the effects of anesthesia (tricaine methanesulfonate) use. ARS experiment 2 examined the survival and retention of PIT tagged Arkansas River Shiner with anesthesia and a reduced handling time (i.e., no weighing). ARS experiment 3 examined the survival and retention of micro transponder p-Chip tagged Arkansas River Shiner with anesthesia and a reduced handling time (i.e., no weighing). Four VIE tagging locations were examined in ARS experiment 1: 1) anterior to the dorsal fin (nape), 2) laterally adjacent to the dorsal fin (dorsal), 3) posterior to the dorsal fin (rear dorsal), and 4) on the caudal peduncle (caudal). All PIT tags were 8 X 1.4 mm full duplex (FDX) PIT tags (Oregon RFID, Portland, OR, USA) and were inserted into the peritoneum just posterior to the left pelvic fin. P-Chips were injected subcutaneously left of the base of the dorsal fin using a 0.8 mm diameter injection needle. The second portion of this dataset field tagging and recapture information used to examine the movement patterns of Arkansas River Shiner Notropis girardi and Emerald Shiner Notropis atherinoides. Fish were tagged and recaptured from October 2018 to June 2020 over two field seasons. Tagged fish were collected using seine netting at seven locations in the first field season and four locations in the second field season. Once captured, all fish were anesthetized using buffered tricaine methanesulfonate before measuring and tagging. Over the first field season (2018-2019), all fish were tagged with two visible implant elastomer (VIE) tags. Arkansas River Shiner ≥ 50 mm total length were also tagged with a passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag, with the exception of one fish 49.16 that was mistakenly PIT tagged. Over the second field season (2019-2020), all fish were tagged with a micro transponder p-Chip. We recaptured fish using a random sampling strategy, where seine net transects were placed 10-m apart, perpendicular to stream flow. Within each 100-m section of the site, we randomly selected 8 of the 10 transects to seine on each sampling event. We conducted seine hauls 10-m apart along each selected transect. The initial sampling location on each transect was chosen using a random number between 1 and 10 where each number represented the initial sampling location (meters) from the access. Each seine haul thereafter was 10-m from each other to ensure we were not chasing fish to different locations. Each fish was carefully checked for tags. Four VIE tagging locations were used to create a unique tagging code for each 100-m section of each site: 1) anterior to the dorsal fin (nape), 2) laterally adjacent to the dorsal fin (dorsal), 3) posterior to the dorsal fin (rear dorsal), and 4) on the caudal peduncle (caudal). Four easy to distinguish VIE tag colors (yellow, orange, red, and blue) were used to create the tagging code. All PIT tags were 8 X 1.4 mm full duplex (FDX) PIT tags (Oregon RFID, Portland, OR, USA) and were inserted into the peritoneum just posterior to the left pelvic fin. P-Chips were injected subcutaneously left of the base of the dorsal fin using a 0.8 mm diameter injection needle.