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Range map strangeness

Started by Guest_FirstChAoS_* , Mar 06 2012 03:00 AM

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#1 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 06 March 2012 - 03:00 AM

I was looking at the Range Map for the Finescale Dace in my ipads Audubon Fishes ap and found it most unusual.

The range is divided into two parts. The eastern part is wider and covers alot of the northern great lakes area, northern new england, and stretches to the lower of the two twin rivers that drain into lake winnepeg.

The westen part is stranger. A narrow strip that goes from the arctic ocean, follows the mackenzie river downwards. But instead of taking the turn in the river towards great slave lake it continues in a strait line away from the river joining at the upper of the twin rivers that drain into lake winnepeg.

I find the gap on a drainage, and straitline following a rivers course away from a river suspicious looking. Does this map reflect a paleodrainage? Perhaps an ancient river system connected the arctic west to the east.reflected by the narrow stretches of the range map (even some of the thick parts are narrow) and the suspicious (all in one drainage system) gap.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 06 March 2012 - 03:01 AM.

#2 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 06 March 2012 - 09:56 AM

Good observation. My hypothesis is a dual refugia (or even three), around Glacial Lake Agassiz and that conditions were unhospitable for recolonization after that great lake drained. I don't have a range map available here at campus, but I suspect this map will describe the gap in the populations as you describe?

http://en.wikipedia....ile:Agassiz.jpg

There were massive outburst floods in this lake that were sediment rich that helped form the prairies of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and there may not have been enough time for erosion to work all this sediment out of the system and allow for recolonization. Crust subsidence to the north and isostatic rebound to the south entrenched the valley of the Red River of the North as an Arctic drainage, and that has slowed erosional processes even more.

It would make an interesting molecular study as the northwestern and southwestern populations may be significant evolutionary units.

Todd

#3 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 03:13 AM

Cool? Do you know where I can find more Glacial Lake Maps?

This is a subject I am curious on as I want to know the drainage of lake connecticut. And the distribution of New Hampshires six or so glacial lakes and how they connected/interacted.

#4 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 08:14 AM

As I understand it, there's not much to it that's different than Long Island Sound. Fig 10 on this page will show you the southern boundary (moraine at 19k).

http://www.lisrc.uco...istory&p3=glhct

Web search on "Quaternary Geology New England" . That will get you quite a bit of information.

Todd

#5 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 12:26 PM

Yep. Todd is the man you want to talk to if you're interested in glacial history of the Great Lakes region. If you don't already know, Fishes of the Great Lakes Region by Hubbs and Lagler has a decent two-page or so introduction (the maps are WAY too small), but you can use it to work your way back into the literature that is cited within.

I've been reading a lot about it because it sets the stage for genetics studies (it tells you what areas are likely going to be interesting, where to collect specimens, and gives you hypotheses to test). I'm hoping to get to some of it in grad school because I think there is stuff going on that would make for interesting evolutionary studies. Not much for speciation because everything up there happened way too recently, but I'm not interested in describing species per se -- I just want to correlate the genes with the geologic history. :biggrin:

Unfortunately, I get hung up on a lot of the geomorphology and just how the processes work. I need to take some classes and talk to people in the know so I can see the light.

#6 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 12:55 PM

Not much for speciation because everything up there happened way too recently

Not necessarily. Look at Coregonids... Ets still does

I'd say pearl dace is another prime for investigation (you're telling me those fish in Maine are the same as what's in Alberta?). And failing to reject the null is even more interesting!

Redside dace are another. I have tissues from Ohio of those if anyone wants to sequence some to see how they compare to Berezden's sequences from WI and MN.

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 08 March 2012 - 01:02 PM.

#7 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 08 March 2012 - 01:10 PM

Sorry -- when I said that I was thinking more of the stuff that colonized the area (warmwater stuff); not those that have been up there for ages and ages, retreated, then recolonized.

Yeah, looking at the range maps of a lot of the cyprinids begs investigation.

Edited by blakemarkwell, 08 March 2012 - 01:10 PM.

#8 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 03:27 AM

As I understand it, there's not much to it that's different than Long Island Sound. Fig 10 on this page will show you the southern boundary (moraine at 19k).

http://www.lisrc.uco...istory&p3=glhct

Web search on "Quaternary Geology New England" . That will get you quite a bit of information.

Todd

Odd I was suspecting a southern river to explain the Pirate Perch and Eastern Mudminnows found on long island but not (unless I overlooked it looking on Natureserve) in either the Connecticut or Hudson.

I was also hoping to compare the fish the southern drainage and the hudson had in common, subtract those found in the connecticut, and then look to see if the ones who couldn't make it had anything in common.

#9 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 08:12 AM

Remember... There was quite a bit of continental shelf exposed to the east due to water being locked up in ice, so it wasn't required that some proglacial lake be the connection. The Hudson could have had a massive delta once it hit the low gradient beyond Manhattan and Staten Island. It's kind of hard to think of those places as "peaks" along the valley, but yeah...

Tom had a student that was working on tesselated refugia on the continental shelf a while back. I wonder if that was published? That would certainly have some pertinent maps.

Todd

#10 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 09:17 AM

Tom had a student that was working on tesselated refugia on the continental shelf a while back. I wonder if that was published? That would certainly have some pertinent maps.

Todd

That would be especially interesting considering how the Tesselated darter in the Hudson has two subspecies with different ranges overlapping. Between that and the super enriched nature of its species I always suspected the Hudson got fishes from at least two different refugia.

Also your peaks along a valley idea also sort of brings up the fact that if fish had limited ranges along a delta they could possiblly get eliminated from a river system when the sea level rose making their absence a false signifier of their former range. Maybe that helps explain all those fish too lazy to cross a lake.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 09 March 2012 - 09:20 AM.

#11 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 09:45 AM

Absolutely. There's a lot of rivers that were basically drowned out by rising ocean levels. And furthermore, the slope of any of those streams would have been relatively flat (non-existant?). Therefore, with the massive sediment supply coming from meltwater, they're going to be crazy sinuous channels that capture and abandon channels, much like machine gun fire in terms of geologic time. Lots of exchange, very quickly.

I have a paper on post-glacial dispersal in Ontario coming on Inter Library Loan. That might help see some of this.

Todd

#12 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 02:22 PM

This topic amazes me, I always wondered about fish post glacial distribution in my area since the day in college I wondered if salt tolerant salmonoids spread before warmwaters. (If A History of Fishing in NH is to be beleived yes they did, salmon and smelt, then arctic char, then brook trout, then warmwaters in a final wave. This makes me wonder if different events triggered these waves or if each species was a wave unto itself).

So many people on NANFA including some New Englanders look down on the fish of New England seeing how species impovershed our streams are compared to those of surrounding states and south eastern Canada. But never do they ask the important question. Why? Instead of seeing it as a failed, stillborn, ecosystem or a work in progress they should ask why, Post glacial geology I suspect has the answer.

On this topic another range map oddity I seen is the east/west and possiblly north south species distribution differences I come to think of as Icthyo-provinces. (not sure if a real name exists for them). In new england west of the green mountains the fish betrays vermonts st. lawrence link as drum, lake sturgeon, bowfin, log perch, sand darter, fantail darter and more swim. Eact of the mountains you get The Connecticut species assemblage. It is tough for me to see what is unique about it as these are my "normal fish" but I do know tesselated darters were originally not found east of this drainage. Further east in the merrimack and coastal drainages you get a third area where you find redfin pickerel, swamp darter, brook lamprey, and banded sunfish. I think this assemblage hugs the coast from southernmost maine to connecticut.

North to south it gets tougher to draw the line. Some species like redbelly dace (as far south as greenfield) and lake chub and longnose suckers (found into the berkshires) make the borders iffy. Others such as finescale and peasrl dace show a strong northern new england division. Even stranger are brook sticklebacks found in just a few northern maine streams.

As for south, I heard of bluntnose minnows in mass and white catfish in connecticut but haven't looked if they are native or not. Along the coast you get the strange killies and sheepshead minnows, a reflection of the warmwater influence in this strange northeastern region where tropics and arctic butt heads.

#13 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 02:56 PM

The first question is... can they get there?

The second question is... does "there" have what they need to flourish? Which is tricky as it can be determined by geology, other species or both.

And... you have to think about it species by species and as a community.

And... you have to think about "how much" of what they need through time to persist.

It's a pain in the arse and I love it.

I'd still rather go to Tennessee to look at fish

Todd

#14 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 09 March 2012 - 03:18 PM

I just put a paper about post glacial dispersal into the Documents Library. I think you will find it of interest, particularly Figure 3.

Todd

#15 Guest_AussiePeter_*

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Posted 10 March 2012 - 12:48 PM

I'd say pearl dace is another prime for investigation (you're telling me those fish in Maine are the same as what's in Alberta?). And failing to reject the null is even more interesting!

White suckes have a similar range, but overall seems to show low genetic differences. Just saying.

Peter

#16 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 10 March 2012 - 01:05 PM

And failing to reject the null is even more interesting!

#17 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

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Posted 10 March 2012 - 02:40 PM

Not if the null was that they'd be similar since were dealing with stuff that happened really recently and since all other genetic studies on fauna of that region have found incredibly LOW genetic divergence between widely disjunct populations (and that's using molecular markers that evolve really fast). I still think almost every species up there would make fascinating phylogeographic studies, especially if you treated a lot of them with similar ranges as one unit.

That being said, headwater species might pan out differently than some of big, riverine stuff with dispersal capabilities like the longnose sucker....

#18 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 10 March 2012 - 08:47 PM

That's interesting to me. Think of the probability of making it through... that's awesome. I could give a damn if geneticists think it so or not

#19 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 11 March 2012 - 06:16 PM

Not if the null was that they'd be similar since were dealing with stuff that happened really recently and since all other genetic studies on fauna of that region have found incredibly LOW genetic divergence between widely disjunct populations (and that's using molecular markers that evolve really fast). I still think almost every species up there would make fascinating phylogeographic studies, especially if you treated a lot of them with similar ranges as one unit.

That being said, headwater species might pan out differently than some of big, riverine stuff with dispersal capabilities like the longnose sucker....

Interesting, does the subspeciation of brook trout and arctic char in some areas reflect the headwater species differences?

#20 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 11 March 2012 - 06:20 PM

Sorry this topic went off from a shiner range oddity to glacial dispersal (A topic that fascinates me) but an idea crossed my mind.

When I was shown the drowned forest at the seacoast science center at Rye they told me this. "when the glaciers melted the water level rose to the rotary in portsmouth, then fell as far as the isle of shoals and a forest grew, then rose some more covering the pine trees preserving them."

Wait a minute, a post glacial forest is preserved (lying horizontally) under the ocean. Then find the spots between the trees and find the rivers! The Atlantic refugium may have some degree of preservation assuming the trees were not moved too far out of place.