Interesting Things In Providence

So I'm back from the ASIH meeting in Providence, unfortunately with a head cold. But it was good to see a bunch of people I've known, and hear from others I've never met before. Mike Sandel from Tuscaloosa wants to show me all of the known Spring Pygmy Sunfish sites so that someone local to the Huntsville area knows them, too. He's apparently getting hostile reactions from construction workers and landowners in the sunfish area, always a good sign that someone is doing something useful. We both know that if the US Fish & Wildlife Service drags its feet on the subject of an emergency Endangered listing for this species, it will soon go the way of the Passenger Pigeon.

Bernie Kuhajda, also from Tuscaloosa, did a strong presentation on the rediscovery of the Three Spot Darter in the Coosa River basin. Even with marked phenotypic differences in breeding males from different populations, there was little difference in DNA sequences.

I also met the Chernoff lab group from Wesleyan in Connecticut who are doing DNA work with the two similar species of Blacknose Dace, Rhinichthys obstusus in the midwest and midsouth east of the Mississippi, and R. atratulus in the Atlantic slope. At this point their data show strong structure between the two recognized species, and also within R. atratulus especially. They had one data point from Tennessee just north of Lauderdale County, AL, so I offered to send them some fish from the Paint Rock River system so they have an Alabama data point. In exchange they'll send me some Banded Killifish, Fundulus diaphanus, for one of my long-term projects. Guess Creek in Jackson County, AL, is probably the best source for these dace so I should get out in the next several weeks.