The stoneroller crusade is proceeding on two fronts. One is examining
young-of-year growth, and the other is looking at aspects of population
structure inferred from genetic analysis. For the summer I actually have 3
people working with me on the two projects, two of whom will probably still
be around in the fall. If all goes well we'll start extracting DNA on
Thursday from one group of stonerollers. I hope to be able to sequence the
cytochrome B gene in the mitochondrial DNA for 5-10 individuals from each of
a variety of locales. This is to examine population structure within
_Campostoma oligolepis_, the largescale stoneroller, and see what
differences are observable as _oligolepis_ shades into the central
stoneroller, _C. anomalum_. That's why I was so happy to collect
stonerollers in that stinky creek in Huntsville, TN, over the weekend. I'm
still not sure if they're better described as _oligolepis_ or _anomalum_.
Next week we also start examining collected YOY fish to describe growth
patterns, both in terms of larval stage and size at larval stage. My
challenge is to ensure that an undergrad student is comfortable with the
generally recognized definitions of larval growth stages.
--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL, US of A
>Bruce,
>
>How is your research with the stonerollers going? I recently received a
>book
>on NAm natives in exchange for a book on Japanese natives. I showed it to
>some Japanese fishkeepers who have shown interest in many of the minnow,
>darter and madtom species listed. Most of the people are familiar with the
>bass, sunfish and related species as they are well established either as
>introductions in lakes as sport fish or as aquarium species. The other
>small, colourful and interesting species such as the shiners, darters or
>madtoms are relatively unknown here.
>
>Ed
>Tokyo Japan
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