A multi-species, multi-season evaluation of body condition effects on fish survival in a coolwater stream

Objective

Body condition is often used as a surrogate of individual fitness in fisheries ecology and management, but empirical data demonstrating this linkage are few. Here, we investigated whether weight at length (i.e., body condition) explained individual variation in survival.

Methods

We conducted a mark–recapture survey of three native fishes subseasonally (every 2 months) over 28 months in a coolwater Piedmont stream in South Carolina, United States. We used a Cormack–Jolly–Seber model in the Bayesian state–space framework to characterize whether survival was explained by body condition.

Results

Body condition changed subseasonally, with its peak in spring (May) and trough in fall (November) in all three species (Bluehead Chub Nocomis leptocephalus, Creek Chub Semotilus atromaculatus, and Mottled Sculpin Cottus bairdii). Survival decreased in warmer subseasons for all species. Additionally, individuals with higher body condition survived better than those with lower condition only in these warmer subseasons and only in the Mottled Sculpin, a species that is territorial and the most intolerant of warmer temperatures among the study species.

Conclusions

Our findings show that body condition is a predictor of survival only when populations undergo high mortalities in some but not all species, which are likely caused by a combination of factors, such as physiological stress, diminished food resources, and increased competition for resources.