Assessing the efficacy of corn-based bait containing antimycin-a to control common carp populations using laboratory and pond experiments

• Published in: Biological invasions Vol. 20; no. 7; pp. 1809 - 1820
• Main Authors: Poole, Joshua R., Sauey, Blake W., Amberg, Jon J., Bajer, Przemyslaw G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-07-2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Antimycin A; Baits; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Carp; Corn; Cyprinidae; Cyprinus carpio; Developmental Biology; Ecology; Fish; Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Indigenous species; Invasive fish; Leaching; Lepomis macrochirus; Life Sciences; Morality; Mortality; Native species; Original Paper; Perca flavescens; Pimephales promelas; Plant Sciences; Ponds; Species composition; Sympatric populations; Toxicants; Toxicity; Species-specific; Toxins; Toxicants; Management; Invasive fish
• ISSN: 1387-3547; 1573-1464
• DOI: 10.1007/s10530-018-1662-y

Strategic use of oral toxicants could allow for practical and sustainable control schemes for the invasive common carp (
Cyprinus carpio,
or ‘carp’) if a toxicant selectively targeted carp and not native species. In this study, we incorporated antimycin-a (ANT-A), a known fish toxicant, into a corn-based bait and conducted a series of experiments to determine its toxicity, leaching rate, and species-specificity. Our results showed that ANT-A was lethal to carp at doses ≥ 4 mg/kg and that the amount of ANT-A that leached out of the bait in 72 h was not lethal to carp or bluegill (
Lepomis macrochirus
). Species-specificity trials were conducted in 227 L tanks, in which carp were stocked with three native species representing families that occur sympatrically with carp in our study region: the fathead minnow (
Pimephales promelas
), yellow perch (
Perca flavescens
) and bluegill. These trials showed high mortality of carp (46%) and fathead minnows (76%) but no significant mortality of perch or bluegill. Finally, a pond study, which used the same species composition except for fathead minnows, resulted in 37% morality among adult carp and no mortality among perch or bluegill. Our results suggest that corn-based bait that contains ANT-A could be used to selectively control carp in ecosystems dominated by percids or centrarchids, such as lakes across the Great Plains ecoregion of North America, where carp are especially problematic.