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

Sturgeons are among the most endangered fishes in the world. Although habitat restoration is often a primary mechanism to restore sturgeon populations, there is a paucity of information to identify habitat across broad scales to support these efforts due to typical small sample sizes, inadequate replication of studies, and limited spatial extent. We synthesized information across five species of amphidromous and anadromous sturgeon throughout North America to identify species-specific knowledge gaps and conduct a quantitative comparison of species-habitat relationships. Combined species habitat suitability indices indicate excellent sturgeon spawning habitat as depths between 4 – 11 meters and velocities of 0.6 – 1.4 m/s. River habitat for non-spawning fish is depths between 5.5 – 15.5 meters and velocities of 0.2 – 0.4 m/s. Estuary habitat is depths between 4 – 11 meters. No estuary velocity estimates were documented by any of the evaluated species. We provide some of the first baseline estimates of habitat use for many populations that can contribute towards development of empirically grounded decision support tools used for management decision making and to prioritize information needs for recovery.