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Abstract
Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing decisions can be guided by Species Status Assessments (SSA), which help describe a species’ needs and life history, current condition, and potential future condition. When species are data limited it can be difficult to inform these documents, however alternative information sources and simple models can help describe what we currently know about a species and identify data gaps. The Rocky Shiner (Notropis suttkusi) is a data limited minnow in Oklahoma and Arkansas that was petitioned in 2010 for ESA listing and is scheduled for a Fiscal Year 2028 decision. To begin informing its SSA, I used species-specific information, surrogate species, and expert opinion to describe likely needs, life history, and influences for the species with simple visual and descriptive models. I also used this information paired with available spatial data and a Bayesian belief network to offer our understanding of the species’ current condition.