Estuarine Habitat Use by White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus)

Oliver Patton,Veronica Larwood,Matthew Young

doi:10.15447/sfews.2020v18iss4art4

Oliver Patton, Veronica Larwood + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2020v18iss4art4

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Abstract

White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), a species of concern in the San Francisco Estuary, is in relatively low abundance due to a variety of factors. Patton et al. sought identify the estuarine habitat used by White Sturgeon to aid in the conservation and management of the species locally and across its range. By seasonally sampled sub-adult and adult White Sturgeon in the central estuary using setlines across a habitat gradient representative of three primary structural elements, the authors found that the shallow open-water shoal and deep open-water channel habitats were consistently occupied by White Sturgeon in spring, summer, and fall across highly variable water quality conditions, whereas the shallow wetland channel habitat was essentially unoccupied. In summary, sub-adult and adult White Sturgeon inhabit estuaries in at least spring, summer, and fall and small, shallow wetland channels are relatively unoccupied.

Highlights

Sturgeons are large, long-lived fishes that grow and mature slowly, ranging throughout North America, Europe, and Asia (Birstein 1993; Pikitch et al 2005)
Our study improves the understanding of White Sturgeon estuarine habitat utilization over a range of environmental conditions in the San Francisco Estuary
White Sturgeon are found in the larger sloughs of Suisun Marsh, a large, expansive wetland located near Ryer Island (Matern et al 2002; Moyle et al 1986)

Summary

Introduction

Long-lived fishes that grow and mature slowly, ranging throughout North America, Europe, and Asia (Birstein 1993; Pikitch et al 2005). White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) is the largest North American sturgeon and is distributed along the eastern Pacific Ocean from central California to Alaska (Birstein 1993; Jackson et al 2016), inhabiting rivers, estuaries, and nearshore coastal environments (Pikitch et al 2005). White Sturgeon are characterized as amphidromous (Bemis and Kynard 1997) and endemic to Pacific estuaries and coastal rivers of North America (Chapman et al 1996). The estuary White Sturgeon population is considered a species of special management concern by the state of California (Hildebrand et al 2016; Moyle et al 2016). Current harvest levels are unsustainable and, together with the loss of habitat, represent a serious threat to the continued existence of the population (Blackburn et al 2019)

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