Northern Redbelly Dace Conservation Project

From our own fish hatchery and breeding to fish releases and field observations with water quality data collection

Innovation Center Data Science Project Team (Jenna W., Taryn M., Mark R., Mateo B.)

Team Members:

Jayme, Jenna, Taryn, Bethany, Sean, Mark, Mateo

Introduction

The Northern Redbelly Dace are fish species that live throughout the United States but they are endangered in Colorado. They used to have a large population in Colorado but their numbers started to decline throughout the 1980s. But their population was almost completely wiped out in the 2013 flood and have since been put on the endangered species list in Colorado. Our group has been working to reintroduce the Northern Redbelly Dace into the Colorado waterways. We have had two releases so far in two different locations, with a third coming up this summer.

St. Vrain River Watershed with live stream gauges

The green pins are at our two field locations where we did fish releases (Rooney Pond, Lyons, CO - release in October, 2020 and Webster Pond, Longmont, CO - release in August, 2021)

Northern Redbelly Dace Recovery Project 2022 Update

Why Does it Matter

ArcGIS Living Atlas - Conservation on a Global Scale

Along the Front Range of Colorado, the Northern Redbelly Dace are very important to the local ecosystem for multiple reasons. The first is that the Northern Redbelly Dace are indicator species. An indicator species is a type of animal that is very sensitive to the world around it and will die if there is too much of a change to its environment. This can be helpful to scientists because it can help that find a problem before it has a detrimental effect on the entire ecosystem.

Female Adult Northern Redbelly Dace inside the Innovation Center fish hatchery.

Colorado Endangered Fish: Northern Redbelly Dace Breeding inside the Innovation Center fish hatchery!

What is Our Motivation?

Our motivations for this project are to help endangered fish. The Northern Redbelly Dace are very important to our Colorado ecosystem and they have been basically whipped out due to the 2013 flood. Our goal for this project it to be able to reintroduce them into the Colorado envionrment so that we can have full ecosystem diversity. Along with this we want to promote conservation thinking for the younger generations. We want to make sure that younger people understand how important each and every speices in to the environment so that we can have a healthy one.

Background Information

  • pH: A numerical value scale between 0-14 that expresses the acidity value of a solution. In this 7 is neutral, any numbers bellow and including 6 are more acidic, and numbers above and including 8 are more alkaline. pH is affected by seasonal fluctuations because of temperature. The pH can fluctuate slightly in a day because of changes in temperature but the most dramatic changes in pH can be seen seasonally when there are big temeraptuer jumps.
  • Nitrogen Cycle: A biochemical cycle where the element of nitrogen circulates throughout different concentrations of both living and non-living material, changing its chemical form throughout
  • Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia: These are some chemical forms seen throughout the Nitrogen Cycle. Nitrates are the result of a biochemical process in the nitrogen cycle where primarily sail based bacteria add oxygen to toxic nitrites, these are then used to stimulate plant growth
  • DO: DO is the disolved oxygen in the water. This is important because fish need oxygen in the water to breath. Certain bodies of water have more oxygen in them than others. For example a fast moving river will have more oxygen that a lake
  • Turbidity: This is how much light can penetrate the water. This is important because it helps show

Sensors

  • YSI
  • Arduino Board --- Atlas Sensors
  • Weather Station
  • Pasco Sensors
  • Chemical Tests
  • Future plans for sensors

Data

In order to collect data are team uses a couple different meathods to collect data. We use chemical tests, PASCO sensors, and the YSI. All of these different tools allow use to get a full picture of the data in the water systems we measure. This data is incredibly important because it allows us to monitor Rooney Ponds and Pella Crossings overall health which has a big impact on the health of the Northern Red Belly Dace.

Innovation Center Breeding (fish and set up)

Field Work

Fish Releases

So far our team has had two fish releases one at Rooney Pond in Lyons Colorado and one at Pella Crossing near Hygine Colorado. The release in Rooney Pond was very successful and we still see Northern Redbelly Dace there today.

Drone Footage for August 2021 Release

Future Plans and Continuation of the Project

  • Currently fish breeding
  • Back in the field in Lyons and Longmont
  • Continuing monitoring water data
  • Collecting water samples
  • eDNA (OtterCares Grant for qPCR machine)
  • Future release sites (Hepp Pond)
  • Community outreach (Dace Day at the Denver Zoo, May 20th, 2022)
  • Collaboration with AI team

Awards

Blue Grama in Vail, CO (left) and SVVSD Superintendent's Recognition in Longmont, CO (right)

Sponsors

Jayme, Jenna, Taryn, Bethany, Sean, Mark, Mateo

The green pins are at our two field locations where we did fish releases (Rooney Pond, Lyons, CO - release in October, 2020 and Webster Pond, Longmont, CO - release in August, 2021)