Southeastern Fishes Council
SFC Abstracts
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Dusting Off the Jars: Using Museum Collections in Studies of Fish Ecology and Fisheries Management
FRANK PEZOLD, STEVEN GEORGE, ROBYN JORDAN, CHRISTOPHER METCALF, and NEIL DOUGLAS
Museum of Zoology, Department of Biology, Northeast Louisiana University, Monroe, LA 71209
Although the systematic importance of fish research collections is well understood, they are underused in ecological and fisheries research. Recent thesis projects undertaken by students at Northeast Louisiana University illustrate the application of research collection data to three different ecological and management problems. One project focused on the life history of the crystal darter, Crystallaria asprella, a species classified as "Of Special Concern" by AFS. Specimens used were collected over a two-decade period. The use of museum specimens reduced the need to obtain large samples of an imperiled species. A second project described the reproductive cycle and life span of the cypress darter, Etheostoma proeliare. Although this species is common in the Ouachita River watershed, it is usually collected in small numbers. As in the crystal darter study, data were pooled by month across years to develop sufficient samples for analysis of annual trends. The objective of the third study was to design an IBI to assess impacts of timber management on relatively undisturbed headwater streams of the Ouachita Mountains. Historical fish collections from the region were used as reference data sets for constructing the IBI. Museum specimens provided a supplementary data set that was not otherwise available because of logistical limitations.
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