The prevalence of different species of fish in four different habitats of Douglas Lake

Abstract

How fish abundance and diversity varies with habitats is very important for understanding the biota in aquatic systems. We studied how fish abundance and diversity varied with habitat in Douglas Lake during mid to late summer. Our habitat types were sandy (Big Shoal), cobbled (Boat-well), vegetated (Hook Point), and woody (Grapevine Point) because they are the most prevalent on Douglas Lake. At each site, we set out a line of five minnow traps and collected the fish every two days, three times. We found that there was a trend of the vegetated site having the highest species diversity, richness, and abundance of fish. The sandy site had the second highest CPUE, but only contained one species of fish. The cobble and woody habitats were relatively equal in abundance, diversity, and richness. The depths of traps were relatively equal at each site, so depth had very little effect on our results. Since we found a trend toward the vegetated habitat having more species abundance, the vegetated site seems to provide the greatest amount of shelter and food of all of the sites.