Black Darter Article Submitted to Journal of Fish Biology

After 16 months of slashing, polishing and reformatting I submitted the black darter reproductive biology article to the Journal of Fish Biology. The good news is that with on-line submission you can send the material straight from your computer without the hassle of mailing it off as overseas mail (that's so 20th century). The only hassle now is registering on the publisher's web portal, and answering a whole list of questions like "Yes, I read the Instructions for Authors" and affirming that I did indeed format everything double-spaced. After submitting the manuscript, figure captions, tables, and 11(!) .pdf files for the eleven parts of 7 figures, the site built a composite .pdf which in my case amounted to 48 pages including a publisher's cover sheet. Hopefully the Editor likes it enough to send out on review.

Anyway, here's the Abstract for "Reproductive Development in the Blacksided Snubnose Darter, Etheostoma duryi" by Stallsmith & Bedingfield:
Reproductive development in the darter fish Etheostoma duryi was studied in two north Alabama populations. Sites chosen for comparison were urban Town Creek in Limestone County, and rural Limestone Creek in Madison County. Because of the small body size of this species the study uses a histological approach never before used in population studies of any Etheostoma species. Microscopic and macroscopic methods were utilized to study gonadal development and investment. Reproductive investment, as measured by gonadosomatic index, relative gonad mass and the proportionality coefficient, increased in both sites (and for both sexes) toward the time of peak spawning. Total number of oocytes differed significantly between populations, possibly attributable to differing body sizes. Clutch size and mass were not significantly different between sites. Reproductive maturation occurs from January until the peak in late March and April at both sites.