bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.17.995183; this version posted March 17, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. This article is a US Government work. It is not subject to copyright under 17 USC 105 and is also made available for use under a CC0 license. 1 2 3 4 Spatial analysis of American Eel (Anguilla rostrata), fish passage and land use in Chesapeake 5 Bay tributaries 6 7 Walker, Nicholas J.1*; Prasad, V.1; de Mutsert, K.1; Dolloff, C.A.2; Aguirre, A.A.1 8 9 1 Department of Environmental Science & Public Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, 10 Virginia, 22030, USA 11 12 2 USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech 13 University, Blacksburg, Virginia, 24061, USA 14 15 * Corresponding author 16 E-mail:
[email protected] 17 18 ¶ These authors contributed equally to this work. 19 20 Abstract 21 Catadromous eels are found in more habitats than any other fish and are capable of inhabiting 22 marine, brackish and freshwater environments. In this study we used the American Eel (Anguilla 23 rostrata) as a bioindicator organism to create a novel method of using spatial analysis to study 24 species conservation over landscape scales. We built a model of the subwatersheds of the 25 Chesapeake Bay using a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and overlaid eel density data (> 1 million 26 eels sampled), dam density data and land use in ArcGIS. Dam construction in the study area peaked 27 between 1955 and 1975, possibly as a result of flood control measures.