Aquatic Plant Control Research Program. Large-Scale Operations Management Test of Use of the White Amur for Control of Problem Aquatic Plants. Report 5. Synthesis Report

摘要

On 9 September 1977, nearly 8000 white amur (Ctenopharyngodon idella) were stocked in Lake Conway, a five-pool, 1800-acre lake system near Orlando in Orange County, Florida. Stocking rate in each pool varied from 3 to 5 fish per surface acre; the fist weighed from 0.25 to 0.61 kg. The white amur were stocked to control the aquatic plant hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) and other macrophytes which had reached nuisance levels in the lake. The U. S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, under sponsorship from the U.S. Army Engineer District, Jacksonville, and the Office, Chief of Engineers, conducted a 5-year study on the effects of stocking white amur on certain biotic and abiotic variables in the lake ecosystem. Studies on the various components of Lake Conway were conducted under contractual arrangement with selected universities and State and local agencies in Florida. The study consisted of a baseline period prior to stocking (January 1976-September 1977), and at least three poststocking years (October 1977-September 1980). Additional studies were conducted on fish and herpetofauna in 1981 and 1982. The results of the Lake Conway project were complicated to some extent by two factors unrelated to the white amur. The most dramatic was uncharacteristically low water levels caused by below average rainfall from 1974 through the end of the study.