I agree with Cold Springs - snrub did an awesome job in compiling this SPB thread!
As regards data on DO and temperature requirements: Everything that I have read (not much) suggests that SPB need higher levels of DO and are more susceptible to stress due to high water temperatures compared to LMB. This seems perfectly logical if SPB are better adapted to streams and larger reservoirs.
However, my limited personal experience is just the opposite! We used to fish a reservoir in SE Kansas that had a mix of LMB, SPB, and a few SMB. It was a great fishery and we frequently had both live wells full of a 3-man limit. This mix usually ranged from 50/50 SPB to LMB, up to 80/20 SPB to LMB.
Each live well might have 1 or 2 floaters at quitting time, especially if it took all day to reach our limit.
The floaters were always the LMB and never the SPB. I don't know the reason. The only other data I can add is that these were our eating fish. We returned all LMB over 3# back to the reservoir on the theory that they might have superior genetics. (The largest we ever caught was just under 8# in that BOW.) We kept every SPB we caught that was eating size. These were usually chunky 12-14" fish that probably weighed 1# to 1.75#.
We also kept the LMB in this WEIGHT range. That usually meant 12-16" LMB, but they were certainly less "chunky" than the spots. (Sorry, I can't remember the technical term for relative fish weight - I will edit and add if somebody prompts me.) Usually there were 1-2 larger LMB that we kept in the 2-2.5# range. Our worst mortality was in the larger LMB and the skinnier LMB from among the shorter bass.
I hope this helps!
P.S. esshup, I tried your Fishbase.org link to get some more info, but it set off all of the security bells and whistles on my computer. Have you been to that site recently?
