Invasive carp are expanding throughout the upper Mississippi River basin and are of great concern due to their potential economic and ecological impacts. Identification of spawning locations provides critical information on recruitment sources to evaluate potential management strategies. Our objective was to create and validate a spawning habitat suitability model of the Des Moines River, Iowa, during low-, average-, and high-water-level conditions. Backwater availability, abundance of hardpoints (structures that create turbulence), river gradient and sinuosity, water temperature, and continuously free-flowing river lengths were used as model parameters. The model was compared to back-calculated spawning locations from invasive carp eggs collected in 2014–2015. Turbulent hardpoints, river sinuosity, and gradient were not significant predictors of invasive carp spawning locations, and backwater availability in the 25 river kilometers downstream of each reach was inversely correlated with invasive carp spawning locations. Invasive carp eggs were not caught in 2014 despite optimal spawning conditions, revealing that spawning may have high interannual variation. This study suggests that predicting invasive carp reproduction may require variables in addition to those currently proposed.

中文翻译：

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密西西比河上游支流对鲤鱼入侵繁殖的适宜性

入侵的鲤鱼正在整个密西西比河流域上游扩张，由于其潜在的经济和生态影响而备受关注。产卵地点的确定提供了关于招募来源的重要信息，以评估潜在的管理策略。我们的目标是创建和验证爱荷华州得梅因河在低水位、平均水位和高水位条件下的产卵栖息地适宜性模型。回水可用性、硬点（产生湍流的结构）的丰度、河流梯度和弯曲度、水温以及连续自由流动的河流长度被用作模型参数。该模型与 2014-2015 年收集的入侵鲤鱼卵的反算产卵地点进行了比较。湍急的硬点，河流的蜿蜒，和梯度不是入侵鲤鱼产卵地点的重要预测因素，每个河段下游 25 公里河流的回水可用性与入侵鲤鱼产卵地点呈负相关。尽管产卵条件最佳，但 2014 年仍未捕获入侵的鲤鱼卵，这表明产卵可能具有很大的年际变化。这项研究表明，预测鲤鱼的侵入性繁殖可能需要除目前提出的变量之外的变量。