Abstract: invasive carp are well established throughout the missouri and mississippi rivers and tributaries

This federal Project Grant award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Fish and Aquatic Conservation - Aquatic Invasive Species (CFDA 15.608) program provides $404,000 to Iowa State University to study the movement and behavior of invasive bighead and silver carp in the Missouri and Mississippi River basins. The objectives are to determine when and under what environmental conditions these invasive carp are moving into tributaries, how far they travel, and the conditions that lead to their congregations at deterrent barriers. This research will help guide the containment and control of invasive carp through targeted monitoring, management actions, and deployment of deterrence technologies. The project will run from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2026 and involves maintaining acoustic monitoring receivers and implanting additional acoustic tags in the carp to track their movements across key rivers in the region.

Knowing when and under what environmental conditions adult bighead and silver carp are moving into the tributaries will help inform when to monitor the population as well as implement management actions. Understanding the movement range of bighead and silver carp, environmental conditions associated with movements, and the conditions associated with congregations at deterrent barriers will allow for the identification of locations where deterrence technologies, concentrated removal efforts, physical barriers, or other emerging technologies can be utilized for containment and control. Therefore, our objectives are to determine silver carp and bighead carp residence time and movement in the missouri and mississippi river and its tributaries in association with season, environmental conditions, and barriers to inform containment and control management actions and assess spatial and temporal trends in silver and bighead carp movements in response to contract removals and environmental changes in the upper mississippi river. To achieve these objectives, we will maintain acoustic receivers throughout the little sioux river, floyd boyer, and nishnabotna rivers in the missouri river basin and the DES moines, skunk, iowa, cedar, wapsipinicon, maquoketa, turkey, yellow, and upper iowa rivers rivers in the mississippi river basin. We will also implant additional acoustic tags in silver and bighead carp across these locations to assess movements. We will also tag native fishes below still #4 to assess use of this area and conditions associated with upstream movements past this barrier. Results from this work will guide containment and control of invasive carp throughout the missouri and upper mississippi river basins.