OU-L Professor Working To Learn More About Eastern Sand Darter

June 17, 2008

Release from: Tierra Palmer
Gannett News Service

LANCASTER - A fish that once inhabited almost every major Ohio tributary, including the Ohio River and Lake Erie is making a comeback, according to one local researcher.

The Eastern Sand Darter, or Ammocrypta pellucida, is a small, translucent fish found only in clean, sandybottom bodies of water.

The species has become increasingly scarce as agriculture and development have encroached on its natural habitat, said Joe Faber, an assistant professor of biology at the Ohio University Lancaster Campus. The fish is listed as a species of concern in Ohio and Indiana, according to the Ohio and Indiana departments of natural resources.

Faber has been studying the Eastern Sand Darter - a hunter that dives into the sandy bottom and then lies concealed with only its eyes showing, ambushing its prey, insect larvae and crustaceans, from this position - for about four years.

"For its part of the ecosystem, the Eastern Sand Darter is considered a top predator," he said.

That fact has not stopped the species from dwindling as water pollution increases - Eastern Sand Darters are listed as threatened in Michigan and New York and endangered in Pennsylvania and are extinct in Montreal and Chateauguay, Quebec.

Faber is working in tandem with a team of researchers from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to identify geographical variations in the species and to learn more about its life cycle and reproductive biology.

"We don't just want a single snapshot in time. We want several snapshots over time to get a better understanding of what the animals are like. This study will give is a big picture," he said.

The researchers plan to submit their finding for publication sometime this winter.

In April, Faber and Matt White, an associate professor of biology at Ohio University in Athens and Faber's former thesis adviser, submitted an article to COPEIA, the scientific journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. The article detailed the results of a nearly decade-long study of the stonecat fish, one of the smallest members of the catfish family, averaging about 6 to 8 inches in length.

The pair began collaborating on the project not long after Faber accepted a teaching position at West Virginia University Parkersburg in 1997. He subsequently joined the faculty at OU-L in 2004.

"As soon as I knew he was in the area, I thought we need to collaborate," White said.

Together, the pair discovered what might be a brand new species of stonecats indigenous to the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Additional tests are needed to confirm the stonecats are in fact a new species.

But, "it appears they haven't bred with other stonecats in 2 million years," Faber said.