We Have 11-KT Data For Scarlet Shiners

I said last time that I would tell you, and I will -- Jennifer's ELISA run for scarlet shiner 11-keto-testosterone levels yesterday worked. She ran the test on blood plasma samples from 20 fish: 7 alpha males, 7 sub-alpha males, and 6 females. From what I could see the ELISA showed sky-high 11-KT levels in the alpha males, somewhat lower levels in the sub-alpha males, and very low levels in the females (like maybe 1% the level of alpha males). So this is exciting, it's real science!

I counted and measured the eggs in 5 telescope shiner ovaries from February yesterday. Not surprisingly these ovaries are small and not very well developed. One of the ovaries only had 2 eggs in it, so I'm dropping it from the analysis. The other four were the largest out of about a dozen females in that collection. These four ovaries averaged 98 developing eggs in an early stage of maturation (early exogenous vitellogenesis), and a mean egg size of 0.65 mm (650 micrometers). For mean size I measured 5 eggs from each individual, which seems to be enough to give a good picture. By comparison, some of the June ovaries have at least 600 eggs and a mean egg size of 1.4 mm from quick examination. Doing this work from a digital image is much easier than looking through a microscope, so I approve of this method. On to more data.......