Free Standard AU & NZ Shipping For All Book Orders Over $80!
Register      Login
Marine and Freshwater Research Marine and Freshwater Research Society
Advances in the aquatic sciences
Shopping Cart: ( empty )
You are here: Home > Journals > MF > MF05035
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 57(3)

Large, regulated forest floodplain is an ideal recruitment zone for non-native common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.)

Ivor G. Stuart A B and Matthew Jones A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Freshwater Ecology, Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, Department of Sustainability and Environment, 123 Brown St, Heidelberg, Vic. 3084, Australia.

B Corresponding author. Email: ivor.stuart@dse.vic.gov.au

Marine and Freshwater Research 57(3) 337-347 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF05035
Submitted: 28 February 2005  Accepted: 8 February 2006   Published: 27 April 2006

Abstract

Non-native common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) are the most abundant large-bodied fish in the Murray–Darling Basin. The abundance of common carp larvae and young-of-the-year appears to increase after flooding, although the relative contribution of floodplain habitats compared to riverine areas remains unresolved. Larval nets were used monthly from September 2000 to January 2001 to identify common carp spawning and recruitment areas in the regulated Murray River and floodplain around the Barmah–Millewa forest. Five non-native and five native fish species comprising 136 111 individuals were collected, with common carp constituting 88% of the overall catch. Less than 1% of common carp, however, originated from the Murray River upstream of the Barmah–Millewa floodplain. Consequently, this floodplain appears to be a major source of common carp recruitment in the mid-Murray area. Conversely, eggs from large-bodied native fish were only present in the Murray River and not the Barmah floodplain. There are opportunities for common carp control in this area, to potentially reduce populations in a wider river reach. Implementation of common carp control measures in the Barmah–Millewa floodplain should be further investigated, particularly with regard to seasonal irrigation flows, obligatory migration routes and in the timing of future large-scale environmental water allocations.

Extra keywords: Australia, Barmah–Millewa forest, floodplain, lake, Murray River.


Acknowledgements

From the Arthur Rylah Institute we sincerely thank John McKenzie, John Mahoney and Justin O’Mahony for expert technical assistance in the field. We also thank John Koehn and Tim O’Brien for initiating, supporting and contributing to the project. We are grateful to John Koehn, Martin Mallen-Cooper and two anonymous referees for comments that improved the manuscript. Thanks to Matthew Dale and Tarmo Raadik for counting and identifying all the fish. Our thanks to Terry Holt and Alan Williams, Goulburn Murray Water, for the carp information from Torrumbarry Weir fishway. Funding was provided by Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Australia under the Fish Rehab 2000 initiative.


References

Bren, L. J. (1988). Effects of river regulation on flooding of a riparian red gum forest on the Murray River, Australia. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management 2, 65–78.
Cadwallader P. L. (1977). ‘J. O. Langtry’s 1949–50 Murray River Investigations.’ Fisheries and Wildlife Paper 13. Melbourne.

Cadwallader, P. L. (1978). Some causes of the decline in range and abundance of native fish in the Murray-Darling River system. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 90, 211–224.
Caughley G. (1979). What is this thing called carrying capacity? In ‘North American Elk: Ecology, Behavior and Management’. (Eds M. S. Boyce and L. D. Hayden-Wing.) pp. 2–8. (University of Wyoming Press: Laramie, WY.)

Chesterfield, E. A. (1986). Changes in the vegetation of the river red gum forest at Barmah, Victoria. Australian Forestry 49, 4–15.
Harris J. H., and Gehrke P. C. (1997). ‘Fish and Rivers in Stress – The NSW Rivers Survey.’ (NSW Fisheries Office of Conservation and the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology: Sydney.)

Humphries, P. , and Lake, P. S. (2000). Fish larvae and the management of regulated rivers. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management 16, 421–432.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Koehn J. D., Brumley A. R., and Gehrke P. C. (2000). ‘Managing the Impacts of Carp.’ (Bureau of Rural Sciences: Canberra.)

Leslie D. J. (1995). Moira Lake: a case study of the deterioration of a River Murray natural resource. M.Sc. Thesis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.

Leslie, D. J. (2001). Effect of river management on colonially-nesting waterbirds in the Barmah-Millewa forest, south-eastern Australia. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management 17, 21–36.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Mallen-Cooper M. (1999). Developing fishways for non-salmonid fishes; a case study from the Murray River in Australia. In ‘Innovations in Fish Passage Technology’. (Ed. M. Odeh.) pp. 173–195. (American Fisheries Society: Bethesda, MD.)

Mallen-Cooper, M. , and Stuart, I. G. (2003). Age, growth and non-flood recruitment of two potamodromous fishes in a large semi-arid/temperate river system. River Research and Applications 19, 697–719.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Sommer T. R., Harrell W. C., Kurth R., Feyrer F., Zeug S. C., and O’Leary G. (2004). Ecological patterns of early life stages of fishes in a large river-floodplain of the San Francisco estuary. American Fisheries Society Symposium 39, 111–123.

Swee, U. B. , and McCrimmon, H. R. (1966). Reproductive biology of the carp, Cyprinus carpio L., in Lake St. Lawrence, Ontario. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 95, 372–380.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Thresher R. E. (1997). Physical removal as an option for the control of feral carp populations. In ‘Controlling Carp Exploring Options for Australia’. (Eds J. Roberts and R. Tilzey.) pp. 58–73. (CSIRO: Albury, Australia.)

Turner, T. F. , Trexler, J. C. , Miller, G. L. , and Toyer, K. E. (1994). Temporal and spatial dynamics of larval and juvenile fish abundance in a temperate floodplain river. Copeia 1994, 174–183.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Walker K. F. (1992). The River Murray, Australia: a semiarid lowland river. In ‘The Rivers Handbook’. (Eds P. Calow and G. E. Petts.) pp. 472–492. (Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford.)

Walker K. F. (2001). A river transformed: the effects of weirs on the River Murray. In ‘The Proceedings of the Way Forward on Weirs’. (Ed. S. Blanch.) pp. 7–22. (Inland Rivers Network: Sydney.)