New barcheek darter paper

The attached paper is the product of Phillip Hollingsworth's M.S. thesis. He is currently a research assistant for C. Darrin Hulsey at the University of Tennessee. Phillip and I are continuing our studies with barcheek darters. The group is a very interesting example of geographic speciation at very small spatial scales, a pattern usually observed in the tropics. Also, our analyses indicate that barcheek darters are an ancient clade, and genetic diversity within lineages currently recognized as species is very high.

Our results have important implications regarding the conservation of these species and lineages.

The paper is in press, but the attached PDF is how the paper will look when it is published in 2009.

To add a little to this... When we looked at the diversity of finescale darters, Nothonotus microlepidus, and bloodfin darters, N. sanguifluus, in the Cumberland we found a similar pattern. These two Nothonotus form a group that is more than ten times younger than the barcheeks, but it still has more distinct lineages, some unrecognized species, than the current taxonomy indicates. It looks like the things promoting diversification in the Cumberland River drainage are not only ancient, but also persistent, since they have created the same pattern in an old clade, the barcheeks, and a young clade, Nothonotus. This means that we may see this pattern repeated in other fish, crayfish, molluscs, salamanders, etc., so conservation planning will need to include particularly small geographic structuring of these animals.

Hasn't this been found to some extent with Plethodon salamanders in the southeast? Cryptic species are definately frequent in southeastern and atlantic mussels. While the rediculous synonomy of descriptions from the 1800s provided it's own mess the endemics and cryptic complexes genetics have shown are reclaiming alot of those names and pushing unionid diversity ever higher. Can anyone say 99 descriptions of Elliptio complanata? Or 30 synonyms of E. lanceolata across a dozen states. I would expect the same with crayfish since they are just as sessile and it is showing up with burrowing species like Cambarus diogenes, C. dubius, C. acuminatus, and wide ranging stream dwelling Orconectes spp.

Ben and/or Tom,

Did you find similar patterns of lineage and diversity in camurus?

What this brings to mind is not escalating protection for individual species... doing the same thing over and over is what??? There's already enough red listed "species" and we're diluting our effect by continual addition. The ESA concept was paramount for its time... but look at how well it's worked in water? Now we're adding species by virtue of technology? It seems to me a more pragmatic stance is begin using this evidence to support protection of critical watersheds and entire assemblages of animals.

I have a bad feeling there's a beauracratic savant sitting in a office somewhere praying for the day when someone figures out primers for Unionid mussels But then maybe we can finally just summarize the synonmy for complanata and grandis lol

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 01 December 2008 - 11:31 PM.

I will Ben correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that camurus does not exhibit a pattern of genetic variation associated with geography that we observe in sanguifluus and microlepidus.

Hasn't this been found to some extent with Plethodon salamanders in the southeast? Cryptic species are definately frequent in southeastern and atlantic mussels. While the rediculous synonomy of descriptions from the 1800s provided it's own mess the endemics and cryptic complexes genetics have shown are reclaiming alot of those names and pushing unionid diversity ever higher. Can anyone say 99 descriptions of Elliptio complanata? Or 30 synonyms of E. lanceolata across a dozen states. I would expect the same with crayfish since they are just as sessile and it is showing up with burrowing species like Cambarus diogenes, C. dubius, C. acuminatus, and wide ranging stream dwelling Orconectes spp.

Ben and/or Tom,

Did you find similar patterns of lineage and diversity in camurus?

Edited by TomNear, 03 December 2008 - 10:43 AM.

We didn't find near the geographic partitioning seen in the other Nothonotus in the Cumberland. One big 'but' is that we don't have all the populations sampled, because certain populations, e.g. Caney Fork, Stones River, Cumberland River at Wolf Dam, have probably been extirpated. A few of these populations have been hypothesized to be distinct species and I'm taking a look at some meristic data, but there are only a few specimens from these populations, so I don't know how conclusive the results will be. In short, there could have been more diversity in the Cumberland River N. camurus, but we may never know.

I agree with Todd, but I think pointing out that there are lots of species/lineages that need protection, across very different groups of animals, will be a good argument for conserving the Cumberland drainage itself. Part of identifying critical watersheds and assemblages requires identifying the scales that conservation will be effective. Perhaps I use the word conservation a bit more broadly, in that I'm not necessarily suggesting that something requires legislative protection, but that distinctness of lineages needs to be taken into consideration for reintroduction or stocking efforts.

There are 10 or so specimens from the Clear Fork River, Fentress Co., TN circa 1974 at TTU. I think the few specimens I kept and left with Tyler were from places that are relatively uninteresting (Sequatchie, Holston, French Broad, Little).

I guess that is the nice thing about mussels. You can see what once was in the Caney Fork (or insert river name here)

There are 10 or so specimens from the Clear Fork River, Fentress Co., TN circa 1974 at TTU.

Yeah, there still pretty common in the Big South Fork, although I've never collected them from the western tribs of the BSF, only main stem and eastern tribs. I've also gotten them from the Red R., Buck Creek, and Rockcastle R., only considering Cumberland drainage tribs. Below is a picture of a male N. camurus from the Rockcastle this past June. These guys were red and relatively small compared to other N. camurus. They are still really thick in the Rockcastle and I've found them in some small, headwater streams that I would not normally consider to be inhabited by N. camurus and to get it back on topic, these were small pool/run, sandy streams that had N. camurus and E. virgatum, sometimes in the same seine haul.
 IMG_4670.JPG   253.66KB   6 downloads
Off topic: This is from a locality under I-75 and after collecting we were informed by the highway construction crew (hydroseeding) that we were 'almost killed' by a wheel that had fallen off a car, bounced off the bridge, and landed 20 ft away in the woods near the river. There were six of us and none of us heard or saw this happen.

but I think pointing out that there are lots of species/lineages that need protection, across very different groups of animals, will be a good argument for conserving the Cumberland drainage itself. Part of identifying critical watersheds and assemblages requires identifying the scales that conservation will be effective.

I thought you might appreciate this quote:

"It is easier to observe and write management plans for the dancers; it is much harder to understand and protect the dance, though it is the dance that has produced the very wildnerness we seek to perpetuate."

White et. al, 2000 "Disturbance, Scale and Boundary in Wilderness Management", USDA Forest Service Proceedings

 IMG_4670.JPG   253.66KB   6 downloads
Off topic: This is from a locality under I-75 and after collecting we were informed by the highway construction crew (hydroseeding) that we were 'almost killed' by a wheel that had fallen off a car, bounced off the bridge, and landed 20 ft away in the woods near the river. There were six of us and none of us heard or saw this happen.
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That was an interesting event. I ended up drinking a couple of beers with this guy while he was on the job. We offered him a sandwich, but he just wanted the brew. It was noon somewhere!

Yeah, there still pretty common in the Big South Fork, although I've never collected them from the western tribs of the BSF, only main stem and eastern tribs. I've also gotten them from the Red R., Buck Creek, and Rockcastle R., only considering Cumberland drainage tribs. Below is a picture of a male N. camurus from the Rockcastle this past June. These guys were red and relatively small compared to other N. camurus. They are still really thick in the Rockcastle and I've found them in some small, headwater streams that I would not normally consider to be inhabited by N. camurus and to get it back on topic, these were small pool/run, sandy streams that had N. camurus and E. virgatum, sometimes in the same seine haul.
 IMG_4670.JPG   253.66KB   6 downloads
Off topic: This is from a locality under I-75 and after collecting we were informed by the highway construction crew (hydroseeding) that we were 'almost killed' by a wheel that had fallen off a car, bounced off the bridge, and landed 20 ft away in the woods near the river. There were six of us and none of us heard or saw this happen.

This looks like a bluebreast darter, Etheostoma camurum. What's with the N. camurus? Has this fish been reclassified? Or am I missing something here? What, may I ask, does the "N." stand for?

Yes Ed the reclassification was proposed by Ben and Tom. "N." refers to Nothonotus, their subgenus level. Camurus versus camurum is a naming convention thing when it's masculine, correct guys?

Yes Ed the reclassification was proposed by Ben and Tom. "N." refers to Nothonotus, their subgenus level. Camurus versus camurum is a naming convention thing when it's masculine, correct guys?

Matt-That is correct about the gender of the name.

Just a point of clarification, our motivation in clade recognition stems from a rank-free phylogeny based classification. It is a fairly new alternative to the Linnean rank system. Though we did not explicity follow the Phylocode, one can learn about rank-free classifications by reading about phylocode.