Behavioural interactions between native smokey dace and introduced yellowfin shiner: implications from habitat selection theory for an ongoing invasion

The occupation of adjacent, non‐overlapping positions along environmental gradients by closely related and ecologically similar species has drawn considerable attention from ecologists over the past decades. Condition‐specific competition, wherein competitive superiority varies with the abiotic environmental gradient, has been proposed as the major structuring force behind such distributions. These concepts, however, are generally applied to explain the contemporary distribution of organisms that share an evolutionary history. Our aim was to apply these concepts to the naive interactions between native and introduced fishes. In 1990 yellowfin shiner ( Notropis lutipinnis ) were introduced into the headwaters of the Little Tennessee River of western North Carolina, U.S.A. where it exhibits microhabitat preferences that overlap significantly with those of a threatened native minnow, the smokey dace ( Clinostomus funduloides raneyi ). Previous research has established that these drift‐feeding minnows: (1) differ in their average ability to intercept drifting prey as a function of water velocity; (2) generally occupy focal‐point velocities that maximize the rate of prey capture; and, (3) occasionally defend the forward positions in foraging aggregations that form in high quality patches. We present the results of a series of experiments designed to: (1) evaluate the role of aggression in the establishment and maintenance of preferred foraging positions in drift‐feeding minnows; (2) test the effects of prey availability, group size, and velocity on dominance rank, spatial position in groups, and feeding rates of individuals; and, (3) evaluate the potential for condition‐specific competition to establish competitive refugia for the native within the natural heterogeneity of mountain streams.