Re: NANFA-- How fish get from A to B
R.W.Wolff (choupiqu_at_wctc.net)
Tue, 14 Dec 1999 00:41:26 -0600
I belive birds moved the eggs of my ommatas from the tubs to the killi
pond. Dozens of species of birds love my ponds, and use them to bathe and
drink from. that is why I said I was shooting myself in the foot. If
cardinals carried the eggs to my front yard and established a population,
then they could fly 3 blocks down the road to the lake and deposit them
there., or maybe even 3 miles the other way and put them in the river, or
several of the ditches inbetween. Ommatas would not survive our couple of
months of icy water, but who knows....
that leads me to my other post. there msut be a controlling factor for
this, or fish should be found in every place they could inhabit. Being
from the Mississippi valley, the terrain would suggest that any fish that
could tolerate the temperatures extremes from one end to the other , should
be there, but they arent. Many are held back by the lock and dam systems,
but smaller species should be all over in pockets from before the dams
construction. Fundulus chrysotus stop in Kentucky because they don't like
the cold, elassoma zonatum stop just above the fall line in Illinois for
who knows what reason, Spotted gar stop just around the border of
wisconsin and Illinois, orange spotted sunfish seem to stop about where the
Mississippi river enters Minnesota. Mudminnows go from the top of the
valley to Tennesee, Rainbow darters go from the top of the valley to
somewhere near Arkansas Walleye make it to central Lousisiana. But why the
restrictiions??? There is Habitat from ST. Paul to Baton Rouge that could
support all these species, some just dont. This is a little different than
birds, but I thought it would be a better ilustraion of why ( or actually
an illustation of the fact that fish arent all over ) fish are confined to
certain areas, even though they should be all over that area. No barriers
really on a river that has been here as long as most of these fish have.
Ray
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