Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program:
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

We are testing how turbidity (water clarity) may affect feeding by larval Paddlefish. Paddlefish begin life after hatching by feeding on individual prey zooplankton (water fleas). We anticipate that water clarity may affect the Paddlefish's ability to find zooplankton to eat. We will test this hypothesis by setting up tanks that vary in the amount of turbidity, including a tank with no turbidity (control tank), and let larval Paddlefish feed over the course of 2-3 hours. The tanks will all have the same amount of zooplankton in them for Paddlefish to feed on. At the end of the feeding time, the Paddlefish will be removed and humanely euthanized, and the amount of zooplankton eaten will be counted by dissecting the fish.