Posted 23 February 2012 - 12:45 PM
I've encountered some other possible dimensions of what shapes darter distributions. We've found that snubnose darters in our area have surprisingly few gill parasites, while others in the same communities will have much higher infestations, especially stripetail and fantail darters. And preferences for depth and current velocity are of course biggies, with snubnoses in shallow, slower waters and others like redlines and greensides going for velocity and depth, respectively. Two students in our program are defending theses next week, after which I'll feel freer about posting some figures from their work on these subjects. All of this work is from the Flint and Paint Rock rivers in NE Alabama.