Brown Darter

Diet and feeding

The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: invertebrates or larval fish. These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.

Reported feeding positions include bottom feeding. The compilation combines published observations; diets can vary with age, locality, and available food.

Habitat preferences

Reported habitat associations include medium to large rivers, streams and small rivers, creeks.

The source records associations with muck, clay or silt, sand, vegetation, organic debris. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1 years. Its maturity field summarizes mean, median, or modal estimates, usually for females; male estimates can be used when female data are unavailable. It is not a fixed age at which every fish first breeds.

Batch or serial spawning has been reported somewhere in the species’ range. This does not establish the same spawning pattern for every population.

Recorded spawning months are Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun for the source’s reporting region (GA). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.

The reproductive-guild classification includes guarding eggs or young at a spawning substrate or nest.

Size and recorded longevity

FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 5.3 centimetres. Some entries use an estimated asymptotic length; this value should not be treated as a certified record catch.

Recorded longevity in the compilation is 3 years. Wild observations were preferred, but captive records were accepted where wild records were unavailable, and unspecified records were assumed wild. The value is not a guaranteed wild lifespan or an aquarium life expectancy.

Native range

St. Johns drainage, Florida, to Perdido River drainage, Alabama (Page and Burr 1991).

Introduction history

Introduction at Boggy Bayou was probably via bait bucket, at least in the headwaters. Multiple bait bucket introductions may have occurred in this area (Burkhead et al. 1992; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1998). Another possible means of introduction is stock contamination. In the 1950s and 1960s, certain sections of the Rocky Creek watershed were stocked with rainbow trout, largemouth bass, and smallmouth bass from the federal fish hatchery in Welaka, FL. The hatchery is located within the native range of the Brown Darter, and it is possible that Brown Darters were accidentally included in the shipment (Burkhead et al. 1992). Lastly, this may represent a natural dispersal through estuaries. Burkhead et al. (1994) demonstrated that this species can tolerate up to 14 ppt salinity with high survivorship. Salinities in the bayou are in this range.

The single individual collected in Juniper Creek, a Boggy Bayou tributary, may have been the result of a bait release (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1998).

Ecological impacts

The Brown Darter is replacing the Okaloosa darter E. okaloosae in portions of several creeks tributary to Choctawhatchee Bay (Burkhead, personal communication).