Pahrump poolfish are the subject of new published research by Craig Stockwell, NDSU professor in the biological sciences department and director of the environmental and conservation sciences graduate program.
Craig Stockwell, NDSU professor in the biological sciences department and director of the environmental and conservation sciences graduate program, has published a research paper in the prestigious scientific journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“Ignorance is not bliss: evolutionary naiveté in an endangered desert fish and implications for conservation” was published Aug. 17.
“Many of the so-called ‘desert fishes’ evolved in small desert oases with limited predator pressure and may have lost anti-predator behaviours,” Stockwell said. “Such predator naiveté may explain why a Pahrump poolfish population in Nevada plummeted from 10,000 to fewer than 1,000 fish following the introduction of two non-native predators.
Previous experimental work in Stockwell’s lab by ECS graduate students Shawn Goodchild and Brandon Paulson showed endangered Pahrump poolfish to be exceptionally vulnerable to non-native predators. Starting in 2017, Stockwell, along with ECS graduate students Madison Snider, Cody Anderson and biological sciences undergraduate student Bailey Gillis, worked with Brian Wisenden, professor at Minnesota State University Moorhead, to test Pahrump poolfish responses to chemical alarm cues typically released during predator attacks.
“Strong avoidance behaviour has been reported for many species, but Pahrump poolfish did not respond to such alarm cues,” Stockwell said. Additional evolutionary analyses showed that other desert fishes respond to alarm cues, suggesting an evolutionary loss of alarm cue responses for poolfish which incidentally evolved in isolation from fish predators. “Thus, poolfish are apparently naïve to non-native predators, which emphasizes the importance of continued surveillance for non-native predators,” Stockwell said.
Stockwell joined the NDSU faculty in 1998. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder; master’s degree in biology at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff; and doctorate in ecology, evolution and conservation biology at the University of Nevada, Reno.
His research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of fish and amphibian populations and applying the information to conservation problems. Stockwell is especially interested in the evolutionary response of fish populations to both novel environments and non-native species.
The Proceedings B journal is the Royal Society's flagship biological research publication. To be accepted for publication, a study must be novel and have general significance to biologists.
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