Finding No-No

In our Muskingum River Survey we’re searching for a couple (invasive) fish species that we hope we do not find: The Silver and Bighead Carp.  Environmental DNA has been detected in the Muskingum River for Bighead Carp and also for Northern Snakehead, another invasive species from Asia.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

And just as importantly, we’re taking names, numbers, weights and lengths of everything else we catch, documenting Muskingum River’s fish fauna before the Asian carp invade.  Just a few of the native species we’re catching or may catch soon that are found in the Muskingum:

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

About the Author: Marc Kibbey is Associate Curator of the Fish Division at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Pre-Asian Carp Invasion: Muskingum River Survey

zano1_dsfrmybrdg

Photo of the Muskingum River from the National Weather Service

A little over two years ago a test of the Muskingum River using eDNA techniques showed positive results for Bighead Carp, one of several Asian carp species, and Northern Snakehead.  Although the Ohio Division of Natural Resources (ODNR) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sampled the Muskingum River extensively neither of these invasive species was actually caught.  It may be that the highly sensitive eDNA technique picked up genetic material from bird feet or boat bottoms that traveled from areas where the invasive species were well established, but that has yet to be proven conclusively.

The OSUM Fish Division is currently carrying out a project to survey the Muskingum River watershed from top to bottom under the supervision of project leader Brian Zimmerman, with a grant from the Ohio DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife, overseen by Associate Professor and MBD director Meg Daly. Fifty-five sites above, below and in each of the nine pools between the locks and dams of the mainstem, and 5 each along the two major tributaries of the Muskingum River, Muskingum River lock and dam Photo from the Ohio Canal Society, the Walhonding and the Tuscarawas Rivers, will be sampled.

Muskingum River lock and dam, Photo from the Ohio Canal Society

Muskingum River lock and dam, Photo from the Ohio Canal Society

The sampling techniques will include

  1. Electroshocking: as the name implies, this technique involves the application of electrical current to stun fish, causing them to remain immobile for crew members with pole nets to retrieve them and place them in a large tub in the boat.
  2. Seining: The use of 6’ tall x 8’ wide seine nets by two or three people in this project to sample shallow areas.
  3. Benthic Trawling: We take an 18’ flat bottomed John boat with two 25 horsepower outboard motors and drag a small “otter” trawl net along the bottom of the river.
  4. Hoop Netting: This method uses 3 sets of large mesh nets supported by iron hoops. The hoop nets are left out for two days after which we return and remove the fish from the nets. Read more about this technique on our fish blog.

With all of the methods the catch is identified, counted, measured and weighed, and returned except for any invasive species we may catch (fortunately no Silver or Bighead Carp have been caught!…yet…). We see a very high rate of survival of the captured fish and these are returned to the river.

The project will extend over two years, from July to September of 2016 and 2017, and will culminate in a final report providing an assessment of the Muskingum River fish community.  This information will provide a baseline for use in potential remediation efforts should the silver and/or bighead carp become established above the Devola Dam.

Technically all carp (Silver, Bighead, Grass, Common, Black, and Prussian carp, and Goldfish are the species currently established in the United States but there are at least four more – Crucian, Catlan, Mrigal and Mud Carp- are recognized as valid species) are Asian in origin.  Common Carp, by the way, are believed to have originally come from the Caspian Sea.  Back in the 1880’s the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries intentionally distributed Common Carp in rail cars across much of the United States to serve as a food fish, but the idea never caught on as extensively as hoped due to the habit of wild carp to scavenge the bottom of water bodies.

Common Carp are invasive, but are considered naturalized.  They can be deleterious to stream and lake bottoms, and do impact other fish, bird, and mollusk species as well as plants, but at this point the damage has been done, so to speak.  After nearly 140 years native fish and other animals have adapted to Common Carp.  Some fishermen and environmental agents prefer to kill Common Carp whenever they are caught, in many cases simply throwing them on the stream bank to suffocate, but in truth this has little if any effect on the population since their recruitment rate is extremely high.

Silver and Bighead Carp were brought to the United States during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and escaped into the Mississippi River watershed from their state, federal and privately run facilities following extensive rains that overflowed the hatcheries.  In the Mississippi River and many tributaries they are securely established in abundances that impact native fish species and interfere with local trawling concerns.

Adult fish species that are known to be adversely affected by Silver and Bighead Carp are Gizzard Shad and Bigmouth Buffalo.  The dietary overlap of the carp with these native fishes has been shown to reduce the adults’ size and health.  In addition the high volume planktonic grazing employed by these carp is likely to compete for that food source with larvae and young-of-the-year of most other native fishes, ultimately causing a reduction in native populations.

Grass Carp are established in lakes and rivers across the State of Ohio.  Deleterious effects from this invader include removal of macrophytes (large aquatic plants) from stream bottoms with concurrent increases in turbidity.  The macrophytes provide cover and spawning habitat for many native organisms.  The carp only digest about 1/2 of the plants they eat, so the large amounts of fecal matter cause algal blooms.  The OSUM crew has caught several Grass Carp already, euthanizing and saving samples from them.

It is not known at this point what the remediation would consist of if Bighead or Silver Carp do invade the Muskingum River.  Similar to many other invasive species it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to completely eradicate them from waterways like the Muskingum River that have connections to other rivers that contain the species.  Short of completely damming the river (which carries its own set of ecological problems), or installing an electric barrier as has been done between the Illinois River and Lake Michigan, eradication would be short-lived.  It may be that the best approach would be to simply utilize the pests as a food source as has been done in Kentucky and other states, since their flesh is much more palatable than that of common carp.  If we catch any Bighead or Silver Carp (electroshocking works well for larger Silver Carp, while hoop netting is one of the best methods for Bigheads) they will be euthanized with samples taken for DNA analysis, but we really do hope that is not the case.

 

About the Author: Marc Kibbey is Associate Curator of the Fish Division at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Show stoppers

The specimen digitization project that we are about to start at the Triplehorn Insect Collection will create a large body of information about butterflies.  Those data, combined with the data from all the collections that are part of LepNet, will be a monumental resource for scientific research. The information on the specimen labels and the images of selected specimens will be fully available online and accessible to all interested parties, from scientists to government agencies to 4-H programs to school classes to the general insect-loving public.

Ohio State has never been a powerhouse of butterfly research, nevertheless we hold a very interesting collection of these fascinating insects. For example, we have some butterfly specimens that were collected in 1880s (they are as old as the Statue of Liberty!). Some of our specimens were collected in natural habitats that are now gone, completely modified by human activity. We have representatives of rare and endangered species. The Parshall donation added depth and breadth to our collection. What amazing new knowledge will we gain from accessing all those data together? The next months and years will be interesting ones!

While we wait for the data, we can enjoy the beauty of the specimens in the collection.

About the Author: Luciana Musetti is an Entomologist and the Curator of the Triplehorn Insect Collection.  Photos by the author.

Happy 4th of July!

I am currently traveling along the coast of Maine after teaching Field Ornithology and Hands-on Bird Science at the Hog island Audubon summer camp.

Don Borror, founder of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics, used to teach at the same camps in the 1950s and ’60s. Like me, he recorded singing birds while identifying birds for campers. Sixty years ago to this day, on July 4th 1956, Don Borror took campers on a short boat ride to Eastern Egg Rock, one of the islands in the Muscongus Bay.

Boat ride from Hog Island to Eastern Egg Rock

Boat ride from Hog Island to Eastern Egg Rock

This island is now famous for its Atlantic Puffins that were brought back to this area by Steve Kress through Audubon Project Puffin (more about this on Friday’s post!).

Among gulls that breed on the island Don Borror discovered a little songbird, a male Savannah Sparrow, that had established a territory and was singing his heart out to attract a female.

Savannah Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy the day with listening to the song of the Savannah Sparrow with the soundscape of coastal Maine.

 

About the author: Angelika Nelson is curator of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics and instructor for Hog island Audubon camps.

Striking Out: Building Strike Collections

Students and staff posing with birding binoculars and scopes

OSU students and staff participating in Biggest Week in American Birding in Northern Ohio. ©Stephanie Malinich, 2012

As a bird-watcher, spring is my favorite time of the year. Every spring millions of birds start to migrate from their wintering grounds to their summer breeding grounds. Surprising to most people, many birds migrate at night and typically you will not see large flocks of small birds traveling throughout the day. Spring migration can be a great time to see new species of birds that may not live in your state year round and this is a time for celebrating birds. But this joyous time for birders can also be an incredibly fatal time for birds that have traveled thousands of miles on their migratory pathway to their nesting grounds.

An estimated 500,000,000 bird fatalities occur in North America each year due to anthropogenic sources including collisions with building (Erickson et al 2005). Yes, this is correct, 500 million birds! This number is especially heightened by the peak migration times of spring and fall, when birds migrating at night are most likely to die: Night migrating birds have always used light to orient themselves and usually the moon and stars are the only light sources in the night sky. However nowadays brightly-lit buildings disorient these birds causing them to collide with windows in buildings. Typically, birds are trying to closely approach the light source (similar to insects around a street lamp) or circle the light source (in this case the building) until a point of complete exhaustion.

Yellow colored warbler with black bill

A Blue-winged Warbler collided with a downtown Columbus building. © Stephanie Malinich, 2016

This makes building collisions a top fatality to birds on their migratory pathway. Actions since this discovery have been taken to lower the numbers of building fatalities, e.g. through the national effort of  Lights Out programs by the Audubon society. The overall goal of the Lights Out programs are to work with building managers in major cities to reduce the amount of light at night during peak migration season. Not only will this help reduce fatalities for nocturnally migrating birds but reduce energy costs for building owners – a win-win situation.

Many of Ohio’s major cities such as Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and Toledo have participated in Light’s Out Programs. Active in Ohio since 2012, researchers have worked with managers of some familiar buildings such as the AEP corporate headquarters, Columbia Gas, Columbus City Hall, Grange Insurance Audubon Center, and more on reducing lights at nights during peak migration seasons. Are you curious about Columbus’s impact on bird building collisions? Columbus Lights Out monitoring report from 2012-2013 gives insights into how lights on buildings in Columbus are affecting the amount of collision death and injury in birds.

Dead bird on sidewalk

Blackburnian Warbler collected by Lights Out Columbus volunteers for a study of building collisions. ©Lights Out Columbus, 2013

What do programs such as Lights Out, which survey injured and dead birds, mean for museum collections around these major cities? For Columbus it meant that birds found dead were submitted to the Museum of Biological Diversity’s Tetrapod Collection, where they are now used as tools in teaching students and making them aware of the impact buildings can have on bird populations. In the two years when we collaborated with the Columbus Lights Out program we received over 200 bird specimens which had died from building collisions in downtown. These now remain as vouchered specimens in our collection, as physical proof, as well as scientific tool, on the impact that building collections have during migration season.

Overall as collection manager, I see a huge increase in our bird salvage intake during spring. This is primarily due to citizen scientists who find birds that have struck windows on their house, work buildings, etc., and want to make sure the birds death was not in vain. On average the Tetrapod collection receives close to 100 bird specimens with suspected death from building collision each year. This April and May alone, I have already received 15 bird species that have died from impacts with windows or buildings and spring migration is not yet close to completion. If you find a dead bird and do not  know what do with it, please visit the museum’s Contribute Specimens webpage to learn about how to donate a specimen to the Tetrapod Collection. Are you worried that your home may be adding to building fatalities among birds? The Lights Out program has suggestions on how you can stop bird collisions at your home or feel free to contact us for some suggestions.
Are you curious to find out more about what can be done to make others aware of window or building collisions by birds during spring migration? See pictures of what Ohio State University’s BioPresence project has done to raise awareness in their art exhibition last fall.

 

About the Author: Stephanie Malinich is Collection Manager of the OSU Tetrapod Collection.

 

Reference: Erickson, Wallace P.; Johnson, Gregory D.; Young, David P. Jr. (2005). “A summary and comparison of bird mortality from anthropogenic causes with an emphasis on collisions.” In: Ralph, C. John; Rich, Terrell D., editors 2005. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002 March 20-24; Asilomar, California, Volume 2 Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191. Albany, CA: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: p. 1029-1042

Different songs for different places

In my last post I talked about how Carolina Chickadee songs have changed (or not) in Columbus and the surrounding areas over the past ~60 years. This post takes a different perspective on how Carolina Chickadee songs can vary: over geographic space. If you were paying close attention in the last post, you may have gotten a sense of geographic variation in song even on a scale as small as Columbus – some songs only appeared in certain areas during certain time periods.

One major component of my dissertation here at OSU has been to quantify how Carolina chickadee songs vary over their entire range, the southeastern United States, and compare this variation to geographic variation in their sister species, the Black-capped Chickadee. Despite Carolina Chickadees being very common birds, not many recordings of their songs were archived in museum collections for me to use. The Borror Lab had the most recordings, but the vast majority of those were made in Ohio.

So in spring of 2014 I embarked on an expedition to record as many Carolina Chickadees in as many different places as possible. Over 5 and a half weeks (divided into three trips), I drove about 6,000 miles through 22 states and recorded over 120 chickadees.

Sample locations during recording trip in 2014

Sample locations during recording trip in 2014

Below are samples of some of the atypical songs that I recorded on my trip. The full Carolina chickadee range is shaded in orange. All the spectrograms shown are on the same scale, so you can directly compare them to one another (the upper limit of each spectrogram image is about 10 kHz). Not included are songs or spectrograms of the typical alternating high-low-high-low Carolina chickadee song, which was also present at most sample locations.

  1. Newark, Delaware

CACH-DE

 

 

 

 

2. Kensington, Maryland

CACH-MD

 

 

 

 

3. Asheboro, North Carolina

CACH-NC

 

 

 

 

 

4. Cartersville, Georgia

CACH-GA

 

 

 

 

5. Camden, Alabama

CACH-AL

 

 

 

 

6. Ajax, Louisiana

CACH-LA

 

 

 

 

7. Meridian, Texas

CACH-TX

 

 

 

 

8. Moyers, Oklahoma

CACH-OK

 

 

 

 

9. Crossville, Tennessee

CACH-TN

 

 

 

10. Salem, Missouri

CACH-MO

 

 

 

 

11. Makanda, Illinois

CACH-IL

 

 

 

 

12. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

CACH-KY

 

 

 

 

 

About the author:  Stephanie Wright Nelson is a graduate student in the department of EEOBiology. She studies song learning in chickadees and is particularly interested in the consequences of hybridization between Carolina and Black-capped Chickadees.

You went there to do what? Collecting mites in the Philippines

 

Collecting mites has its own rules. It is often very easy to collect a great diversity very close to home. For example, the Buckeye dragon mite, Osperalycus tenerphagus, was collected in (and described from) an old-field just across from the museum, and one of the most reliable sources of Terpnacarus is under a conifer in my front yard. Still, some groups do require a bit more travel, and this year has been particularly busy on that front, with trips to the Philippines and Brazil. The goal for both trips was the same: collect a diversity of Uropodina.

Uropodid mite from Australia

Male uropodid mite from Queensland, Australia

Berlese funnels

Berlese funnels at UPLB (photobombed)

The group is the current focus of my research. They occur in all temperate and tropical areas of the world (there is a good diversity in Ohio), but some genera and families are restricted in distribution, usually to specific parts of the tropics. So off I went to collect in faraway places.
Mite collecting trips do differ a bit from classical big game collecting trips in Africa or India: 1) nothing is being shot, and 2) there is a noticeable lack of caravans of porters, elephants, etc. Most mite collecting involves either collecting directly from hosts (insects, vertebrates, etc), or from the habitat. For me habitat was the main target, given that most uropodines live in soil, litter, or rotting wood. Collecting mites is also not very glamorous and definitely lacks instant gratification: you go to a habitat, collect possible sources of mites (e.g. bags of soil & litter), and bring them back for processing. Processing usually means Berlese funnel extraction, using heat to drive the mites out of the substrate until they fall down the funnel and into preserving fluid (95% ethanol in most cases). Bottom line, you spend 30 minutes collecting, have to wait 2-3 days to see results, and many more weeks to figure out what exactly you got.  Patience is a virtue.  On the bright side, a single sample may yield hundreds of mites.

Mite collecting

From left to right: Phin Garcia, author, Jeremy Naredo

The Philippines trip was standard in many ways, but exceptional in terms of scale. I usually come back from a trip with 2-8 samples, here we were running 20 funnels almost continually. It helped a lot to have good collaborators, and for this trip I was fortunate to be able to work with folks at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, the agricultural campus of the University of the Philippines. The help of Drs. Juan Carlos Gonzalez, UPLB Museum of Natural History director, and Jun Lit, director of the Arthropod collection, is greatly appreciated. I specifically worked with Jeremy (Jebboy) Naredo, a MSc student, and Rufino (Phin) Garcia, a staff member with an uncanny ability to find mites.

Our base of operations was the museum. The building is relatively small, but quite nice, and with small but extremely popular exhibit spaces. One day there were 8-10 buses of school kids parked in front.
The Museum is set in a remnant of tropical forest. To test the funnel assemblies we put up on the day I arrived, we grabbed some litter from around the building, and ended up with some of the richest samples of the entire trip. One more of the oddities of sampling for mites. The campus proved to provide some very good sampling opportunities, both around the museum and in the Hortorium, a much larger forest remnant along a creek running through campus.

Creek in Hortorium, UPLB campus

Creek running through UPLB campus

There are potential problems working in the Philippines. Collecting, even of litter samples, is strictly regulated, so we could only work in certain areas using permits issued to the museum. And as usual, not everything worked. A long anticipated trip to Sibuyan Island, the “Galapagos of the Philippines”, had to be cancelled because of rough weather. The only way to get to that island is by ferry, and with rough seas all ferry rides were cancelled. Disappointing, but there is a limit on how much risk to take to collect mites, and this was clearly too much.
The main trip was to the Laguna – Quezon Landgrant area, an area that has both decent forest and is the focus of additional reforestation efforts.

Laguna Quezon Landgrant area

Laguna Quezon Landgrant area

The trip there was interesting. Initially the standard fare, using a rented jeepney to get to the headquarters. After that it got more fun, when we climbed on a wagon towed by a tractor. I have strong suspicions that the folks at the station wanted to see how long we could last on a trip worthy of any amusement park ride. To say that the ride was “bumpy” is an understatement. We regularly went airborne, getting seriously worried about being flipped out of the wagon. Eventually we decided to walk the final part to save ourselves and the dissecting microscope I was bringing. On the way back we walked all the way with a horse carrying our supplies, much better. The camp we stayed at was basic, but by using a stream coming out of the mountains, there was running water and even nice (but cold) showers. And excellent yields of mites. Phin and Jeremy braved a colony of army ants to get some of the (temporary) nest material. The ants did not appreciate it, and later on tried very hard to leave the funnel through the top, instead of falling down in the alcohol. We had to tape up all access points to avoid having a colony in the museum.  The rangers in the area were great, although it was slightly disconcerting that they all carried shotguns (to protect against log poachers).

Mahogany plantation

Mahogany plantation

I never left the island of Luzon, but we did travel to the Northeastern corner of the island, a roughly 12 hr car ride. We went to visit Dr. Leonila Raros, the pre-eminent Philippine acarologist , who has retired there. The area is 95% rice paddy, but we sampled her bamboo plots, and a few other sites on the way. Samples included a mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) plantation. This species of mahogany is native to Central America and increasingly rare in its native range. In contrast, it has become a pest plant in the Philippines, invading forest remnants and displacing native vegetation. Very little will grow under these trees in the Philippines

Cave at Pangasinan

Crew after sampling Pangasinan caves

Our final collecting trip was by far the dirtiest: caves at Pangasinan. The cave systems here are enormous, with a very active group of cavers constantly working on mapping the caves. I was interested because bat guano may house some very specific uropodines. 30 years ago I worked in the Philippines on a mammal survey, spending a lot of time in bat caves. All of those were dry, these were not. These cavers view of a “dry” cave was wading into water up to your knees, “wet” caves would require scuba gear (I only figured this out AFTER we visited). An interesting experience.

Overall we ended up with almost 400 vials of specimens, mostly uropodids. That may easily represent several thousand specimens. Does such level of collecting endanger species or destroy habitats? Almost certainly no. Each sample may represent about 2l (0.5gal) of soil and litter. Any road or housing construction will destroy far larger areas and mite numbers. Second, while most people think plants or vertebrates or butterflies when thinking about conservation, mites are parts of ecosystems, and to figure out what role they play it would be good to at least know what we have.

Thanks to Jeremy Naredo who provided most of the pictures.

About the Author: Dr. Hans Klompen is professor in the department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and director of the Ohio State University Acarology Collection.

Dead clams walking – Part I

 

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled animals in North America according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Habitat destruction, pollution, dams, and a litany of other problems have driven many to the verge of extinction. Alas, many are already there. Perhaps the poster children of extinct or soon-to-be-extinct mussels are members of the genus Epioblasma. Once widespread in eastern North America, perhaps no other group has been so decimated by the activities of mankind. And “decimated” is an understatement. Technically, “decimated” means to kill every tenth member of something. For Epioblasma, every species is either extinct or endangered to the point of becoming extinct. And we, mankind, did this to them.

Because so many species of Epioblasma are extinct, the habits of very few have ever been studied. But those that have been investigated reveal a unique (if perhaps somewhat shocking) lifestyle. Like most freshwater mussels, members of Epioblasma have a parasitic larval stage, the glochidium, that uses fishes as hosts. Most mussels have evolved some means of efficiently putting their babies on the proper host. This usually entails luring the host to the mussel to be parasitized. But Epioblasma goes one step further – they actually catch the fish and hold onto it until it has been covered with thousands of parasitic larvae. Mama mussel then releases the host. If all goes as planned, several weeks later the larvae will transform on the fish, fall to the bottom and start their life as juvenile mussels. For the few species for which the hosts are known, the victims are darters and sculpins. The fishes have no one but themselves to blame – they are caught by the mussel when they get too nosy and stick their heads in the mussel to investigate.

Below are some images of the federally endangered Northern Riffleshell and its unfortunate host. Members of the Division of Molluscs have been moving this rare species from the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania to Big Darby Creek in Ohio. The Allegheny population is the only reproducing one on earth but it is doing very well, with probably 100s of thousands of individuals. In partnership with the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium and Columbus Metro Parks, we have been relocating this species for nearly seven years with the permission and funding of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the ODNR Division of Wildlife, and the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission. To date nearly 10,000 individuals have been moved. In order to monitor these mussels, every one has been affixed with a $4 Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag. All have been released into several of the Metro Parks on Big Darby where they can be protected and monitored. The goal is to start a reproducing population there with the ultimate hope of delisting the species as endangered. This is the largest introduction/augmentation of an endangered species in the history of Ohio.

Next time we will present a gallery of Epioblasma.

A female Northern Riffleshell, Epioblasma torulosa rangian

A female Northern Riffleshell, Epioblasma torulosa rangiana

A male Northern Riffleshell

A male Northern Riffleshell

A female Riffleshell awaiting a nosy darter

A female Riffleshell awaiting a nosy darter

A darter has been caught by the mussel's shells and held for parasitization

A darter has been caught by the mussel’s shells and held for parasitization

This darter did not survive the ordeal. Note the larval mussels attached to the fish's opercles and eyes.

This darter did not survive the ordeal. Note the larval mussels attached to the fish’s opercles and eyes.

PIT tags, about the size of a large grain of rice

PIT tags, about the size of a large grain of rice

PIT tags are glued to the outside of the shell with an underwater epoxy

PIT tags are glued to the outside of the shell with an underwater epoxy

Release of tagged individuals to a site on Big Darby Creek

Release of tagged individuals to a site on Big Darby Creek

Dr. Ieva Roznere (OSU) monitoring the mussels with a PIT tag reader

Dr. Ieva Roznere (OSU) monitoring the mussels with a PIT tag reader

A pair of recovered individuals

A pair of recovered individuals

 

 

 

 

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

A Somewhat Odd Fish Returns to Ohio

Photo by Patrycja Lawryniuk

Pirate Perch (Photo by Patrycja Lawryniuk)

The Pirate Perch’s common name, applied by naturalist Charles C. Abbot upon observation that Pirate Perch in his aquarium ate only other fish (actually they also prey on aquatic insects, annelids and crustaceans); is perhaps less accurately descriptive than its scientific nomenclature Aphredoderus sayanus.  The genus Aphredoderus translates to “excrement throat”, referring to the position of the urogenital vent.  It had been speculated that one of Charles Abbot’s naturalist contemporaries (Jacob Gilliams) named the species after the entomologist Thomas Say as a jibe resulting from some acrimony between the two friends, but evaluation of the meaning of the name reveals that “-anus” is used as a suffix that translates to “belonging to” (http://www.etyfish.org/names-of-the-week2014/).

Young Pirate Perch have their vent just in front of the anal fin, but as the fish matures the vent moves forward to just below the juncture of the gills.  Placement of the vent near the throat enables the females to more accurately place their eggs in root masses such as those extending into the water from streamside trees and other woody growth.  As recently as 20 years ago ichthyologists thought that the unusual reproductive morphology supported brooding the eggs in the gills since occasionally females were found with a few eggs therein.  Positioning of the vent is one of the characters (as well as a highly developed lateral line sensory system) shared with cavefishes that is used by ichthyologists to place them in the order Percopsiformes.

The photo below shows a Pirate Perch young-of-the-year (probably about 6 months) with the vent between the pelvic fins at this point in its development.

Pirate Perch young-of-the-year

Pirate Perch young-of-the-year

OSUM 102207 Aphredoderus sayanus showing vent under throat (photo by Marc Kibbey)

OSUM 102207 Aphredoderus sayanus adult showing vent under throat (photo by Marc Kibbey)

Pirate Perch were recorded in the Maumee River drainage of northwestern Ohio as far back as 1875 but disappeared over 60 years ago, primarily from destruction of their habitat.  Demand for productive farmland in that fertile area resulted in development of methods to drain the widespread wetlands, including the practice of channelization.  Channelization, or straightening and dredging; of streams was implemented to facilitate accelerated removal of water from areas inundated during heavy rains.  However this method cleared away aquatic plants, logs, sticks and detritus that was the preferred habitat of the Pirate Perch.  Bulldozing the bank sides removed the undercut bank structure with underhanging root masses that sheltered Pirate Perch and multitudes of other aquatic animals.  Removal of streamside riparian barriers results in siltation of stream bottoms mainly from field tillage and exposes aquatic fauna to pesticides and other chemicals; these impacts compounded to extirpate the Pirate Perch from the state.

Pirate Perch are actually rather tolerant of waters with low oxygen content, preferring low gradient, slow moving and fairly turbid oxbows in streams as well as lakes.  Their extensive distribution is not typical for a fish species with exclusive requirements.  Flourishing populations of Pirate Perch can be found just across the Indiana State line as close as the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers, where they are frequently found in farm ditches.

Camp Creek Pirate Perch locality

Camp Creek Pirate Perch locality (photo by Marc Kibbey)

The last Pirate Perch captured in Ohio was caught in 1950.  Extensive sampling by ichthyologists and agencies in the Maumee River watershed failed to find a Pirate Perch until 2013, when the OSUM Fish Division’s sampling crew of Brian Zimmerman and Justin Baker caught one in the Auglaize River near Waynesfield, Ohio.  Imagine the excitement of the two fish enthusiasts!  At first it was thought that a refuge population had proliferated and reoccupied the former Pirate Perch locality as a result of water quality improvements and habitat re-emergence.  But it turned out that the Ohio Division of Wildlife had released up to 200 individuals near that locality as part of a reintroduction effort back in the early 2000’s.  Subsequent trips to the area found more sites with all size classes (very small young to large adults), particularly in smaller tributary streams like Camp Creek with populations that dominated the fish fauna.

Brian and Justin at Camp Creek

Brian and Justin at Camp Creek (photo by Marc Kibbey)

It appears that current conditions in northeastern Ohio, and particularly the Maumee River watershed, have improved or continue to improve to the point where populations of Pirate Perch can be supported in suitable areas.  Recent implementation of no-till and conservation tillage farming practices reduce siltation of waterways, while these combined with conservation of riparian zones help prevent runoff of pesticides into the streams.  Assuming continuation of these practices as well as sewage treatment and other water quality enhancements, the Pirate Perch should be able to reoccupy former distributions and perhaps even spread beyond their historically known range, reassuming their position among Ohio’s fish fauna.

Other interesting aspects of Pirate Perch’s biology include their color: They are fairly attractive (and make good aquarium pets) with iridescent blue (occasionally green, copper or silver) dots along their olive-to-black back and sides.  The males develop a vivid violet hue that complements their black head and sides in spawning condition.  Additionally Pirate Perch may be the only predator known to exhibit sensiochemical crypsis where they employ a range of olfactory cues to obviate avoidance by a diverse assemblage of prey animals, similar to olfactory mimicry (Resitarits and Binckley, 2013).

Photo by Michael Wolfe

Photo by Michael Wolfe

 

About the Author: Marc Kibbey is Associate Curator of the Fish Division in the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Tree holes and their mites

Many mites are very specific for particular habitats, whether it is the inside of the lip of a bat or a flower bud of a single plant species.  We have established this for many plant, insect or vertebrate associates. But knowing where exactly the mites are on a host is fairly easy. What about mites living is less discrete situations, like the litter layer? We are fairly sure that litter mites also have fairly specific microhabitats, but this is much more difficult to demonstrate.

image of tree hole sampled for mites   In the acarology lab we have been looking at one subgroup of litter habitats, tree holes. In this case we define tree hole as any cavity in the trunk of a tree that is not directly connected with the underlying soil. Tree holes in general may provide more stable microclimates, in terms of temperature, moisture, humidity and sun exposure, than standard litter habitats. All types of tree holes contain mites, and those mites tend to be specific to tree holes. Wet tree holes, containing water or just very wet litter, have been studied quite extensively because they are breeding grounds for certain species of mosquito, but we are particularly interested in dry tree holes. Initially we became interested in this microhabitat because we wanted to know more about distribution and habitat restrictions of Uropodella, a rare genus that had been found only in tree holes.  The genus Uropodella is most diverse in Chile, with only 1-2 species in North America. These mites appear to be phoretic on Tenebrionidae, and, fitting with that association, are found in very dry tree holes, containing nothing more than pulverized wood.

Image of grey squirrel

Gray squirrel

Mites in treeholes can also tell you something about other inhabitants of that treehole. Finding Aeroglyphidae in a S. Carolina tree hole indicated that there were probably bats roosting in that hollow tree, while the numerous Glycyphagidae in a tree hole in Columbus were consistent with the squirrel nest found in that same tree hole.

Glycyphagidae, ventral view of male

Glycyphagidae, ventral view of male

But this early research was largely anecdotal.

One of us, George Keeney, followed up in a big way by systematically sampling a large number of tree holes, some several times during different seasons.  The focus for this study was a quite diverse group, the Uropodina. We found that tree holes in Central Ohio not only have a quite diverse uropodid fauna, but that the species in tree holes tend to be tree hole specialists. A few species have been associated with a wide variety of tree species, while a number of other species have only been encountered only once or twice.  The two most commonly encountered tree hole species are Allodinychus nr. cribraria and Vinicoloraobovella cf.  americana. George affectionately calls the former species the “elf hat mite”, due to its fanciful resemblance to such!  That being said, we do not have enough information yet to determine whether these tree hole uropodines are specific for a given tree species, a given tree hole inhabitant (e.g. squirrels, birds, bats), particular exposure, tree hole size, tree hole litter moisture, season, etc., etc. To find out, we are now following up on the early survey, by recording more of these details, and especially by sampling many more tree holes.

 

Some tree species are more prone to developing dry tree holes in their trunks, usually at the site of branch removal or other injury.  Silver maples, magnolias, American beeches and American sycamore are some notable examples of such trees.  In Ohio, these species can be common in urban plantings and therefore, tree hole mite sampling can be quite productive in parks, campuses, street boulevards and other urban areas as opposed the more rural areas.  Such park trees are often mature and may have had large branches removed by landscaping and maintenance, providing the initial germ of many tree holes.  Sampling tree holes involves gathering the detritus from within the hole, though the hole should be thoroughly inspected before placing ones hands inside, as one may often be intruding upon the abode of a wary raccoon or testy gray squirrel!  So if you see anybody carefully trying to get “goo” out of a tree hole, it is not just fun, it might be research.

Tree hole in boxelder containing Philodana

Tree hole in boxelder containing Philodana

Philodana johnstoni, ventral view of female

Philodana johnstoni, ventral view of female

And there is always the option of finding something that is truly unexpected. One of the most spectacular for us was a hole in a broken branch of a box elder near campus at the Olentangy River Wetland Research park.  It contained a large population of Philodana johnstoni, a very odd species of Trigynaspid mite described from Ontario and New York, with no additional published records. It appears to be associated with the tenebrionid Neatus tenebrioides.

image of Don Johnston

Don Johnston

It is a very appropriate find, given the connection of this species with Ohio State University. Philodana johnstoni was named by John Kethley in honor of the previous director of the Acarology Laboratory, Don Johnston, and is a double honorific, as Philodana combines “philos” (=loving) and Dana, Don’s wife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Authors: Dr. Hans Klompen is professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology and Director of the Ohio State University Acarology Collection. George Keeney is Manager of the Acarology Collection and the OSU Insectary.