Annual Recruitment and Survival of Juvenile Gulf Sturgeon in the Apalachicola River | W81EWF 23 SOI 0024

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81EWF 23 SOI 0024

The grant opportunity titled "Annual Recruitment and Survival of Juvenile Gulf Sturgeon in the Apalachicola River" funds field research aimed at understanding how river flow patterns and water-management operations affect the early life stages of Gulf sturgeon in the Apalachicola River and Apalachicola Bay. The project is grounded in prior findings that year-class strength in Gulf sturgeon can track hydrologic conditions, with earlier work in the Suwannee River showing strong correlations between recruitment and higher monthly mean flows in September and December. The working hypothesis is that higher flows can improve juvenile conditions by lowering estuarine salinity (expanding suitable feeding areas near the river mouth) and by reducing low dissolved oxygen events in lower river reaches. Because Gulf sturgeon recovery depends on consistent recruitment and survival of juveniles, the opportunity emphasizes the need for standardized, long-term monitoring that can produce defensible annual abundance estimates rather than only presence or catch summaries.

A major driver behind this work is a 2016 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion addressing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers update to the ACF (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint) Water Control Manual, including operations at Jim Woodruff Lock and Dam. The Biological Opinion concluded that the updated operations may adversely affect several listed species, including Gulf sturgeon, and highlighted concerns that reduced floodplain inundation frequency and duration could harm young-of-year and juvenile sturgeon survival and growth. The Biological Opinion established Reasonable and Prudent Measures, including RPM 2016-3, which calls for monitoring to quantify potential incidental take by tracking distribution, abundance, survival, growth, and fecundity of affected species in the action area. This grant opportunity is designed to generate the baseline and continuing data needed to evaluate whether Water Control Manual operations are associated with measurable changes in juvenile sturgeon recruitment and survival, while also capturing natural year-to-year variability.

Methodologically, the project builds directly on approaches used by the USFWS Panama City Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, which has coordinated juvenile sampling in the Apalachicola system since 2013. Past work estimated Age-1 cohort abundance on the order of roughly 50 to 200 fish per year, but continued monitoring is needed to detect trends, link recruitment to environmental conditions, and evaluate potential management impacts. The proposed fieldwork focuses on targeted netting from May through July in the lower Apalachicola River, including areas such as the Brothers River where prior capture success has been documented. Sampling uses anchored monofilament gill nets configured as three 50-meter panels with different mesh sizes (7.6 cm, 8.9 cm, and 10.2 cm stretch measure) to efficiently capture juveniles across a range of sizes. The anticipated effort is substantial, with six to twelve nets deployed daily during the sampling period.

Captured sturgeon are processed with a full suite of biological measurements and identification steps to support mark-recapture population estimation and cohort assessment. Each fish is weighed and measured (fork length and total length), checked for prior tagging (external tags and/or internal PIT tags), and newly captured individuals are tagged with both T-bar and PIT tags. The protocol also includes collecting a genetic tissue sample (such as a fin clip) and removing a section of secondary pectoral fin ray for age determination, allowing the study to resolve age and size structure and to focus specifically on Age-1 recruitment. A subset of fish is surgically implanted with acoustic telemetry tags using established procedures, after which fish are allowed to recover and are released downstream of the capture site to reduce the chance of immediate recapture bias and to support consistent movement tracking.

A second major component is the design and operation of an acoustic telemetry array in the lower Apalachicola River and estuary. The awardee is responsible for constructing, deploying, maintaining, downloading, and ultimately retrieving this receiver network. Receiver numbers and placement are to be finalized in consultation with the Engineer Research and Development Center prior to award, but the operational expectations are clear: the array should be installed before the tagging/netting phase, downloaded quarterly, and kept functional and in position through project completion. The array is intended to generate time-stamped detections that show when and where tagged juveniles move within the river-estuary continuum, including use of different bay zones such as nearshore areas and open-water habitats.

The work is organized around two primary tasks. First, the awardee will quantify Age-1 recruitment in the Apalachicola River using a standardized mark-recapture framework, pairing capture histories with age and size information to estimate cohort abundance and examine recruitment dynamics. This is meant to help determine whether observed differences in cohort strength align with environmental drivers (like flow) and whether there is any signal that could plausibly be linked to ongoing USACE operations under the Water Control Manual. Second, the awardee will quantify overwinter survival of Age-1 sturgeon in Apalachicola Bay using passive telemetry detections. By tracking movements and residency through the receiver array, the study can estimate survival over the winter period and interpret habitat use patterns that may relate to food availability, salinity conditions, and broader estuarine productivity, all of which are relevant to concerns that altered flow regimes could affect invertebrate production needed for juvenile growth and survival.

Applicant qualifications are geared toward teams with demonstrated, hands-on expertise with endangered fish research, particularly Gulf sturgeon life history, safe netting and handling procedures, tagging, and telemetry. Applicants are expected to have a track record with telemetry-based study design and data analysis, and they must be prepared to secure all necessary state and federal permits. On the administrative side, the awardee must develop a Statement of Work and Work Plan and provide routine status reporting tied to invoicing (monthly or quarterly), along with an annual report each year of the cooperative agreement summarizing progress on data collection and analysis.

The required deliverables reflect the management-driven intent of the program. Products include annual or project-period estimates of Age-1 recruitment for the Apalachicola River population, a flow-recruitment analysis that combines new results with prior river datasets, detailed summaries of timing and duration of juvenile presence within the acoustic array (effectively describing seasonal occurrence and residency patterns), and quantitative estimates of overwinter survival rates for juveniles. In short, the opportunity funds an applied, field-intensive monitoring and analysis effort that links hydrology, water-control operations, and juvenile Gulf sturgeon population performance in a way that can directly support consultation requirements and broader recovery planning.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, the opportunity is offered by the Department of Defense through the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center as a discretionary cooperative agreement under CFDA 12.630. The funding opportunity number is W81EWF 23 SOI 0024, with an award ceiling of $110,000 and an expectation of one award. The posting lists a creation date of June 14, 2023 and an original closing date of August 14, 2023, and eligibility is described broadly as "Others" with additional eligibility details referenced in the full notice.

• The Department of Defense, Engineer Research and Development Center in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Annual Recruitment and Survival of Juvenile Gulf Sturgeon in the Apalachicola River" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 14, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 14, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $110,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for W81EWF 23 SOI 0024

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