Fishers and Fish Science: The Australian Fish Scientist Perspective
Fishing is an important part of Australian society. So is communication between fish scientists and fishers strong enough? (Image Credit: State Library of Queensland, CC0)
Tag Archives: fish
Peter Unmack & Karl Moy: Saving an Endangered Fish from Extinction
A release of the formerly endangered Running River Rainbowfish. So how were they brought back from near-extinction? (Image Credit: Karl Moy, University of Canberra, CC BY-SA 4.0)
We talk a lot about getting the public interested in conservation and ecosystems on Ecology for the Masses, but we’ve rarely talked about how conserving a species is actually accomplished. Where does funding come from? How do you decide which individuals to save? And how do you allow a population room to grow?
In 2015, Peter Unmack was sampling in the Burdekin river system in northern Queensland, Australia, when he noticed an alien population of Eastern Rainbowfish had established in Running River. Specifically a 13km stretch bounded by two gorges, which housed the Running River Rainbowfish, a species distinct to this one stretch. Knowing that the presence of the Eastern Rainbowfish could spell the extinction of the local species, he started a crowdfunding initiative, and essentially saved the Running River Rainbowfish. I spoke to Peter and postgraduate student Karl Moy about the conservation effort.
Episode 6: The Creature from the Black Lagoon
We submerge ourselves into the murky depths of what is clearly a backyard pool and meet… yet another man in a suit. This week is all about the Gillman from 1712’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Dave and Adam both need more bloody caffeine.
4:29 – Movie History
14:23 – Physiology of the Gillman
37:51 – Ecology of the Gillman
1:01:56 – The Gillman vs. Richard Strickland from The Shape of Water
Too Many Fish on the Sea Floor
When fish like this goby aggregate, the density of their nests can often have a big impact on their success (Image Credit: Laszlo Ilyes, CC BY 2.0)
Spatial and temporal patterns of nest distribution influence sexual selection in a marine fish (2018) Wong et al., Oikos, doi: 10.1111/oik.05058
The Crux
When we monitor the fluctuations of a population, we often look at vital rates, a huge part of which is reproductive success. The success that males have in siring offspring can be hugely influenced by the density of a population, particularly when it comes to a breeding ground.
Larger males will often outcompete smaller males on such grounds, however in many species these males will often reach reproductive limits, at which point smaller males can benefit. Smaller males may also fare better in less dense populations, where females lack other individuals to compare them to. Our study today looks at variations in reproductive success of a nest-breeding fish species over two levels of density.
Gretta Pecl: Climate Change in Coastal Waters
So often the effects of climate change are somewhat intangible to us; the weather may grow warmer, but it’s a slow and gradual process, which can seem entirely at odds with the alarm bells that things like the IPCC report seem to be constantly clanging. As such, demonstrating tangible environmental changes to a community whose livelihood may depend on such changes is a great weapon in the fight against the effects of a warming climate.
With this in mind, marine biologist Gretta Pecl founded the Range Extension Database and Mapping project, also known as Redmap. Redmap aggregates public sightings of fish to show shifts in the distributions of Australia’s marine species, including some that are crucial to our fishers. At the recent ASFB 2018 conference, I sat down with Gretta to talk about changes in marine species distributions, how they’ll affect Australia, and how they might help the public understand the effects of climate change.
The Problem With ‘Carpageddon’
The Australian government has been throwing around the term Carpageddon for a while now. So why is it a problem? (Image Credit: Ed Dunens, CC BY 2.0)
I think it’s fair to say that Australian politics can be guilty of a flair for the dramatic from time to time. From the recent spill crisis, to the name-calling that abounds in parliamentary displays, to Bob Katter announcing that he wasn’t wasting time on the marriage equality debate because “every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in Northern Queensland”, Auspol enjoys the sensational. So when they heard about plans to release a virus into Australian waterways to deal with Australia’s persistent carp problem, of course they named it ‘Carpageddon’. But is this in any way an appropriate title? And why is it such a problem that we use this sort of language to sell scientific endeavours?
The Chilly Cradle of Life
Species richness is much higher in waters near the equator, but do we see that in a phylogenetic tree? (Image Credit: Rich Brooks, CC BY 2.0)
An inverse latitudinal gradient in speciation rate for marine fishes (2018) Rabosky et al., Nature doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0273-1
The Crux
The tropical regions of the Earth are the most species-rich and diverse ecosystems on the planet, with this diversity and species-richness declining as you move further and further from the equator. One hypothesis explaining this is that speciation rates are simply higher in the tropics, meaning that more species are evolving in a given time in the tropics than anywhere else. To test for this, the authors used the largest phylogenetic tree available and analyzed speciation rates (how many new species evolve from older species) per million years.
