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Blue Pike


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#1 Guest_vasiliy_*

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Posted 11 August 2007 - 05:54 PM

Could someone tell me more about them? I read somewhere that they are a sub-species of walleye and that that subspecies became extinct sometime in the twentieth century, but that's all I know. If anyone found any photos of them on the web that would really help too.

#2 Guest_bullhead_*

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Posted 12 August 2007 - 10:51 PM

There was a thread where we discussed blue walleye, silver pike, blue pike, etc. There was a photo of a silver pike. I seem to recall a magazine article about blue walleyes from Lake Erie in the past year in a fishing magazine ("Esox Angler" maybe?).

#3 Guest_scottefontay_*

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Posted 13 August 2007 - 09:01 AM

Could someone tell me more about them? I read somewhere that they are a sub-species of walleye and that that subspecies became extinct sometime in the twentieth century, but that's all I know. If anyone found any photos of them on the web that would really help too.



I Googled "blue pike" ...

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Blue_walleye
http://www.seagrant....h/bluepike.html

#4 Guest_vasiliy_*

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Posted 13 August 2007 - 12:58 PM

Thankyou for the pictures. I was also wondering, since blue pike are a sub-species of walleye, could it be possible to genetically create a blue walleye in a labaratory (is there any info on if anyone tried that before? I read that there is research going on to determine the blue walleye's current status, but that's not what I mean). On the wikipedia article I read that there are blue colored Sander vitreus vitreus, but the amount of scales on the lateral line and fin rays are different.

I hate to make this comparison, but long ago in China people noticed that some Gibel Carp (Carassius auratus gibelio) had little golden flecks on them. They separated those fish and bred them. Their offspring had even more golden flecks, and so on until they made Goldfish (Carassius auratus auratus) (These days the two are separated into C. auratus and C. gibelio). Where some one releases them into our waters, the reverse effect happens, the gray ones survive predators and are the only ones left.
Could something similar be done to make blue pike?

Also, in Europe there are three more species of fish in the genus of the walleye, pikeperch, Volga Zander, and Estuarine Perch. All three naturally have blue coloration. Please, however, don't let anyone think that we could substitute blue walleye with pikeperch. That actually almost happened one time but was stopped in time. Maybe certain genes could be used or maybe even cross-breeding? True, walleye aren't as good as cross-breeding as cyprinids, but it still might work.

So did any scientist try or thought of trying this? Or are there some flaws in this? (I suspect there are).

#5 Guest_scottefontay_*

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Posted 13 August 2007 - 01:48 PM

You can't really make the comparison of selective breeding for phenotype to the evolutionary selection of genotype. For example, I can take huskies and breed them to look identical to wolves (without using wolves) but this in no way makes them a wolf (I know that huskies came from wolves origianlly, this is an example). Likewise, breeding walleye to look like "blue pike" will not make them behave like blue pike. Walleye and blue pike evolved to be genetically dissimilar due to a distinct divergence in behavior and ecological role, and ultimately genetics, over the course or who know how many thousands of years. If we lost them and they are extinct the ONLY way to "create" them in a lab would be to clone known, and complete, genetic material of this species which at this time does not exist.

Can you take a gold finch and breed a purple finch? No, you can only breed a purple gold finch. I see where your going, but we cannot play God. They can't even do this with dodos yet, animals that we have near complete genetic information for. Or passenger pigeons.

Or you could look at the differences between red and gray foxes. Red foxes tend to live in meadows and gray foxes tend to favor woody areas and they don't actually directly compete to a large degree because of this behavioral trait where their ranges overlap. Could we breed red foxes to look grayfoxes, yes we can. BUT could we breed red foxes to favor wooded areas and behave like gray foxes? I think not.

To selectively breed walleye to look like "blue" pike through selective breeding of phenotype or gene splicing, we would be introducing a genetically cultured animal that would directly complete with native walleye species, because it would be a walleye that is blue, not a "blue walleye".

That's my 3.64 cents worth.

#6 Guest_vasiliy_*

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Posted 14 August 2007 - 01:21 PM

Yes, that makes more sense.

I have a question to anyone in the forum though, if a species disappears from an ecosystem for a very long time, then it is re-introduced, since other species adapted to life without it, would that species cause any damage? I am not talking specifically about blue pike but in general.

#7 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 14 August 2007 - 04:58 PM

Excellent question! I suppose that depends on what you mean by "damage". It's not a trivial concept.

#8 Guest_vasiliy_*

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Posted 15 August 2007 - 12:54 PM

By damage I meant hurting a population of native fish to some extent.

That brings up another question: If a species disappears for a long time and then re-appears a long time later, could it be a good killer of invasive species introduced during it's absense? Or would the invasive species not let it survive?

#9 Guest_scottefontay_*

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Posted 16 August 2007 - 07:02 AM

By damage I meant hurting a population of native fish to some extent.

That brings up another question: If a species disappears for a long time and then re-appears a long time later, could it be a good killer of invasive species introduced during it's absense? Or would the invasive species not let it survive?



Interspecies relationships are a very complicated thing. It is very hard to say what population responses will bee seen following the introduction of invasives or native fish following their absense. If the native fish had been absent from an ecosystem long enough and the remaining species equilibrated themselves (possibly with invasive present), reintroduction of the native would play out much like introduction of an invasive, the difference that there was a history of relative equilibrium with that species in the envrionment (invasive interactions may be unknown/unexpected).

Check out this thread: http://forum.nanfa.o...amp;#entry18005

What would happen if the white sucker in that video clip was outcompeted and diplaced by an invasive fish that ate the same stuff and filled the same niche BUT was a much messier eatier and maybe foraged in larger groups? More food would be available for all the opportunistic feeders following behind. What if the increased availability food meant that the populations of all those opportunistic feeders increased. They could possibly eat more than benthic invertebrates populations could keep up with and grow beyond the ability of the ecosystem to continue supplying food, populations could crash affecting all forage species, essentially taking out the lower levels of the food chain. Which could have far reaching affects to reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals.

As to your question: As Irate said..."it depends" on A LOT of factors and no one can say exactly how a community may be affected by even the smallest changes. Reintroduction of a long-absent native into waters where an invasive may have taken up the niche would most likely result in that invasive and the native putting further stress on all of the other fish species in direct or indirect competition for resources, further weakening the native populations of species. In our snapshot of time this may be disasterous, but over the the ecological timescale could be a very minor speedbump. It depends. Hope that helps...

#10 Guest_PikemasterGeneral_*

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Posted 10 July 2008 - 04:28 PM

Could someone tell me more about them? I read somewhere that they are a sub-species of walleye and that that subspecies became extinct sometime in the twentieth century, but that's all I know. If anyone found any photos of them on the web that would really help too.


I had some discussions about Blue Pike with The US Fish & Wildlife Service - Lower Great Lakes Fishery Resources Office.

They sent me a PowerPoint presentation about the historical Blue Pike (Sander Vitreum Glaucum)... I loaded the presentation into a web-player and put it at the bottom of the page on our fishing trip website HERE.

Hope that helps.

Chris

Edited by PikemasterGeneral, 10 July 2008 - 04:29 PM.


#11 Guest_steelneal_*

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Posted 09 February 2009 - 10:48 PM

Interspecies relationships are a very complicated thing. It is very hard to say what population responses will bee seen following the introduction of invasives or native fish following their absense. If the native fish had been absent from an ecosystem long enough and the remaining species equilibrated themselves (possibly with invasive present), reintroduction of the native would play out much like introduction of an invasive, the difference that there was a history of relative equilibrium with that species in the envrionment (invasive interactions may be unknown/unexpected).

Check out this thread: http://forum.nanfa.o...amp;#entry18005

What would happen if the white sucker in that video clip was outcompeted and diplaced by an invasive fish that ate the same stuff and filled the same niche BUT was a much messier eatier and maybe foraged in larger groups? More food would be available for all the opportunistic feeders following behind. What if the increased availability food meant that the populations of all those opportunistic feeders increased. They could possibly eat more than benthic invertebrates populations could keep up with and grow beyond the ability of the ecosystem to continue supplying food, populations could crash affecting all forage species, essentially taking out the lower levels of the food chain. Which could have far reaching affects to reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals.

As to your question: As Irate said..."it depends" on A LOT of factors and no one can say exactly how a community may be affected by even the smallest changes. Reintroduction of a long-absent native into waters where an invasive may have taken up the niche would most likely result in that invasive and the native putting further stress on all of the other fish species in direct or indirect competition for resources, further weakening the native populations of species. In our snapshot of time this may be disasterous, but over the the ecological timescale could be a very minor speedbump. It depends. Hope that helps...



#12 Guest_steelneal_*

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Posted 09 February 2009 - 10:49 PM

Could someone tell me more about them? I read somewhere that they are a sub-species of walleye and that that subspecies became extinct sometime in the twentieth century, but that's all I know. If anyone found any photos of them on the web that would really help too.



#13 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 09 February 2009 - 11:16 PM

Uh, steelneal, what are you trying to communicate?



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