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The effects of flow and stream characteristics on the variation in freshwater mussel growth in a Southeast US river basin

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Title The effects of flow and stream characteristics on the variation in freshwater mussel growth in a Southeast US river basin
Names Dycus, Justin C. (creator)
Wisniewski, Jason M. (creator)
Peterson, James T. (creator)
Date Issued 2015-02 (iso8601)
Note To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work. This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. and can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291365-2427.
Abstract 1. The evaluation of the age and growth of animal populations is essential for understanding and
predicting how populations will respond to changes in environmental conditions and anthropogenic
stressors.
2. We used a novel, von Bertalanffy hierarchical modelling approach to quantify relationships between
the growth of three freshwater mussel species and various site- and watershed-level factors including
seasonal discharge, land cover and stream size in the lower Flint River Basin, Georgia, U.S.A.
3. Our modelling approach quantified the mussel-to-mussel variation in the von Bertalanffy parameters
and accounted for biases associated with multiple measurements made on each mussel specimen,
which are generally not accounted for as sources of bias in age and growth studies.
4. Modelling results suggested that maximum shell size parameter and the Brody growth coefficient
varied across species, on average, 19 and 33%, respectively, among individual mussels within sample
sites. The variation was related to short-term high streamflows during the spring season, stream size,
channel geomorphology and land cover in the watershed.
5. This study provides insight to the factors affecting the growth of stream-dwelling freshwater mussels.
Although hierarchical von Bertalanffy growth models are rarely used for freshwater mussel age
and growth studies, this approach can provide important information regarding the ecology of freshwater
mussels.
Genre Article
Topic annuli
Identifier Dycus, J. C., Wisniewski, J. M. and Peterson, J. T. (2015). The effects of flow and stream characteristics on the variation in freshwater mussel growth in a Southeast US river basin. Freshwater Biology, 60, 395-409. doi:10.1111/fwb.12504

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