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Swimming performance and invasion potential of the round goby

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Abstract

European round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) are displacing several important native North American fish species. Controlling their invasion is contingent on understanding their swimming inclination and potential. We assessed goby swimming inclination by recording activity in a 2 m flume over a ~24 h period, and swimming potential using a critical swimming (U crit) test, as well as burst tests in still and flowing water. When given the choice to move, gobies covered as much as 14 m/h, with a slight bias towards nocturnal activity and an overall upstream preference. When confined and coerced to perform a U crit test, they burst-and-held to achieve 35.5 ± 1.1 cm/s. Thirty minutes following U crit, they were able to burst-and-coast in a sprint test to almost twice this speed. In still water, they exhibited startle bursts of up to 163 cm/s. We provide a swimming endurance model that indicates flow rates would need to be >125 cm/s to prevent upstream movement, and free of refuge areas in which to recover. The current study shows that the round goby is a surprisingly powerful swimmer with the capacity to continue its invasion should hydrologic control be absent.

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Acknowledgment

The authors greatly appreciated the talent and hard work of Marc St. Pierre and Steve Budinski of the University of Windsor’s Science Technical Shop in constructing the complicated swim tunnel respirometer used in this study. The authors thank Christine Cobbler for help with swim tunnel calibrations and Bianca Mancini for help with goby burst swimming measurements. We thank Jan Ciborowski and Lynda Corkum (Windsor) for use of their flow probe, and Doug Wiens (Alberta) for help with statistics. Funding was provided by NSERC grants to KBT, BSZ and DMH, and by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to DMH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, T6G 2E9

    Keith B. Tierney

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4

    Ashley V. Kasurak, Barbara S. Zielinski & Dennis M. Higgs

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  1. Keith B. Tierney
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  2. Ashley V. Kasurak
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  3. Barbara S. Zielinski
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  4. Dennis M. Higgs
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Correspondence to Keith B. Tierney.

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Tierney, K.B., Kasurak, A.V., Zielinski, B.S. et al. Swimming performance and invasion potential of the round goby. Environ Biol Fish 92, 491–502 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9867-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9867-2

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