1. THE EFFECTS OF STRESS ON LARGEMOUTH BASS REPRODUCTION Stephen Wilson Biology 3920

2. INTRODUCTION The largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides Tournament angling and how it effects largemouth bass Reasons bass may become stressed Characteristics of largemouth bass

3. Characteristics of the Largemouth Bass Large mouth. Jaw line that extends past eye. Lateral lines. Different colors Florida and northern species of largemouth bass.

4. Hypothesis Statement We expect the offspring that is produced from the stressed group will show some negative effects as compared to the control group.

5. METHODS AND MATERIALS The means by which we obtained the fish was by electro fishing. The areas we chose to electro fish were lakes, reservoirs, and ponds.

6. Table 1. Adult Largemouth bass Adult largemouth bass VariablemeanSE Male length (mm)3606 Male weight (g)61964.5 Female length (mm)385.513.5 Female weight (g)90590

7. The bass were placed in an earthen pond prior to spawning. They were then sorted and placed into eight water flow-through raceways. Once acclimated to the raceways for 24 hours they were then ready to be stressed. The types of stress would be similar to ones that are caused by tournament angling.

8. TYPES OF STRESS Chased in a circular tank for 90 seconds. Exposed to air for 60 seconds then placed into a live well. While in the live wells they were exposed to similar disturbances that would be caused by an angler They went through a process similar to a tournament weigh-in.

9. The bass were then placed into eight 0.04 hectare ponds. Four ponds were contained both stressed and non stressed fish. The other four ponds contained only non- stressed fish. These are the control ponds. Each pond maintained the same temperature, leaving no bias. The bass were allowed to spawn on their own.

10. After 69 days the ponds were drained. We counted, weighed, and took lengths of the age 0 bass. We took otoliths from several of the bass. Several different people aged the fish in a random order to prevent bias. A length frequency test was done.

11. Results Stressed adults produced smaller offspring. The length frequency data was skewed toward smaller sized classes of fish. Swim up for the stressed offspring was 2 days later.

12. The Results of the Control Ponds

13. The Results of the Stressed Ponds

14. Discussion Stress on bass before the spawn has negative effects on offspring. These results are consisted with other experiments. Having smaller offspring can have an effect on the population The experiment does not show an effect on reproduction numbers.

15. Questions??