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River connectivity restoration for upstream‐migrating European river lamprey: The efficacy of two horizontally‐mounted studded tile designs

Lothian, Angus J.; Tummers, Jeroen S.; Albright, Atticus J.; O'Brien, Pat; Lucas, Martyn C.

River connectivity restoration for upstream‐migrating European river lamprey: The efficacy of two horizontally‐mounted studded tile designs Thumbnail


Authors

Angus J. Lothian

Jeroen S. Tummers

Atticus J. Albright

Pat O'Brien



Abstract

Many rivers are heavily fragmented, resulting from anthropogenic cross‐channel structures. Cost‐effective solutions are needed to restore habitat connectivity for migratory fishes, including those of conservation concern, such as the European river lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis). Studded material is becoming increasingly used as a low‐cost retrofit solution for lamprey passage at sloping weirs, although little is known about the efficacy of the material or what stud arrangements may be most effective. This study tested whether expanding a single‐density studded tile (SDT) lane from 1 to 2‐m width increased passage success (nreleased = 133), and also compared the passage performance between a SDT lane and a dual‐density studded tile (DDT) lane (nreleased = 115) at a sloping weir, using PIT telemetry. No passage was recorded (nattempted = 89) at the 2‐m wide SDT lane, but 61.6% (npassed/attempted = 53/86) passed using DDT/SDT lane combination. However, increased passage efficiency was likely a result of high river flow (Q2.0‐Q30.6) during DDT/SDT comparison versus low (Q8.3‐Q88.5) while the 2‐m wide SDT lane was employed. There was no evidence that passage occurred using solely one stud configuration. It is, therefore, hypothesised that passage of river lamprey at weirs is more dependent on flow regime than the provision of either stud configuration. However, with 46.1% (npassed/released = 53/115) of those released during DDT/SDT comparison passing on the instrumented section (10.5% of weir face), the provision of studded tiles may aid in lamprey passage at high flows, presumably as the tiles generate a low‐velocity boundary layer that can be utilised as lamprey swim above the studs.

Citation

Lothian, A. J., Tummers, J. S., Albright, A. J., O'Brien, P., & Lucas, M. C. (2020). River connectivity restoration for upstream‐migrating European river lamprey: The efficacy of two horizontally‐mounted studded tile designs. River Research and Applications, 36(10), 2013-2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3734

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 9, 2020
Online Publication Date Sep 27, 2020
Publication Date 2020-12
Deposit Date Sep 29, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal River Research and Applications
Print ISSN 1535-1459
Electronic ISSN 1535-1467
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 36
Issue 10
Pages 2013-2023
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3734

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (1.7 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2020 The Authors. River Research and Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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