Endemic Fishes of the New River, by Don Orth

Anyone who travels in the New River valley know it’s a very special place.  Those who study the fishes know some secrets too.   The New River is the oldest major stream in the eastern United States – it should be the Old River.  The historic Teays River originated in the Tertiary Period and at that time drained much of eastern North American in the pre-glacial period.  However, the original route of the ancient Teays was altered by glacial advances which created a massive ice dam blocking the northward-flowing Teays. Geologists maintain that the river retained its course from headwaters in the Blue Ridge province, across the Valley and Ridge province and into the Appalachian plateau for 100 million years or more.  Through this period of slow uplift of the Appalachian region the river continued to slowly erode its bedrock streambed through gaps in major mountain ranges.  This wide, shallow, bedrock river flows northward across the strike or grain of underlying geological structures (Spotila et al. 2015).

New River supports 46 native fishes, 8 of which are endemic species.  Endemic species are unique to a defined geographic location.  The endemic fishes of the New River likely diverged after geographic isolation from ancestral forms during the Pleistocene glaciation. These glaciers, as they advanced southward, displaced fishes into unfrozen tributaries.  The upper New River drainage was likely an important refugia for fishes during this most recent ice age.  This history explains why the number of native fish species in the New River is low compared with similar sized rivers in the eastern US.  However, the number of endemic species is high.    

New River near Rich Creek, Virginia.  Photo by Valerie F. Orth. 

New River has a relatively high number of endemic fishes due to two main causes: (1) the presence of natural barriers and (2) the immobility of a species.  The Pleistocene glaciers did not reach Virginia though the climatic and barrier effect was a strong influence in the New River fish fauna.  During the Pleistocene, the climate cooled and for fish in the New River, it was “no way out and no way in.”  New River fish had to stay, adapt, or die.  The mainstem falls, cascades, rapids prevented upstream dispersal after the Pleistocene glaciation.   The Pleistocene ended 10,000 years ago, leaving many native New River fishes as cool-adapted.  Few native warmwater species are widespread.   Today, the New River has the highest proportion of introduced to native fishes of any eastern USA drainage as at least 57 introduced fishes persist in the New River alongside 44 native fishes (Easton et al. 1993; Easton and Orth 1994; Angermeier and Pinder 2015; Hilling in press).     

The eight endemic fishes include three minnows, two sculpins, and three darters, all groups that typically have little or no long-range migrations. The first three endemic fishes are in cyprinids.  Cyprinids are members of the family Cyprinidae (minnows), the most species rich family of fishes in North America.  There are 53 recognized genera and 286 species of minnows in North America (Mayden 1991).

The Bigmouth Chub Nocomis platyrhynchus occurs only in the New River drainage and its distribution is allopatric with its closest relatives, the River Chub Nocomis micropogon and the Bull Chub Nocomis raneyi.  Bigmouth Chub inhabits medium- to large-sized tributaries and the mainstem New River which have a moderate gradient, warm, usually clear water, and a good mix of gravel to boulder substrates.   For more information, click here.

Bigmouth Chub male (top) and female (bottom). Photos by Hunter Hatcher (top) and D. J. Orth (bottom) 

The Kanawha Minnow Phenacobius teretulus is one of five species of Phenacobius referred to as suckermouth minnows for obvious reasons.  The Kanawha Minnow is the only Phenacobius in the New River, has a limited distribution, and is an uncommon part of the fish assemblage.  Juveniles and adults typically occur in riffles and runs of gravel, rubble, and boulder in cool to warm creeks and small to medium rivers.   For more information, click here. 

Kanawha Minnow.  Photo by Fritz Rhode.

New River Shiner Notropis scabriceps occurs in pools and slow runs of cool to warm creeks and small to medium rivers. It is more common in Blue Ridge province than in the Appalachian or Ridge and Valley provinces.  As with other New River endemics, temperature has been postulated as a major factor governing its distribution.  In one of the few temperature preferenda studies, the final thermal preference of the New River Shiner was 19.3 °C, or 66.7 °F (Shingleton et al. 1981).   Two non-native species, the telescope shiner Notropis telescopus and whitetail shiner Cyprinella galactura may also compete with the New River Shiner (Keplinger 2007).

New River Shiner.  Photo by Ben A. Cantrell.

Kanawha sculpin Cottus kanawhae was first considered a subspecies of the Banded Sculpin Cottus carolinae.  It is widely distributed in tributaries of the New River and often overlaps with the Mottled Sculpin Cottus bairdi.  Why?  I don’t know.

 

Kanawha Sculpin.  Photo by Derek Wheaton.  

 

Dorsal saddles of Kanawha Sculpin.  Photo by D.J Orth. 

Dorsal fin of Kanawha Sculpin. Photo by D.J.Orth

Bluestone sculpin Cottus sp. has a very limited distribution in the Bluestone River and little is known about its present status and distribution.   

 

Bluestone Sculpin.  Photo by Noel M. Bulkhead.  

Candy Darter Etheostoma osburni is a rare fish that’s currently under review for federal listing as an endangered species. Candy Darters are most abundant in shallow riffle and run habitats but only occurs in a limited number of streams and has declined or disappeared from some historic locations.   The proposed Mountain Valley pipeline would cross Big Stony Creek, which supports one of the remaining populations of Candy Darters.  The Candy Darter may be the most colorful local darter.  It’s occurrence in clear mountain streams means it can be seen by the avid snorkeler willing to crawl amidst the fast-flowing boulders and cobbles. Click on this video link to watch the Candy Darter behavior underwater. 

Candy Darter male.  Photo by Derek Wheaton.

Kanawha Darter Etheostoma kanawhae is a close relative of the Candy Darter and the two distributions do not overlap.  Kanawha Darter occurs in fast-flowing riffles in tributaries of the New River in North Carolina and Virginia.    Their ancestral form was likely widely distributed in the Teays and Old Mississippi rivers and separated by the Pleistocene glacial advance.  Other close relatives occur in the Ozark highlands and the upper Ohio drainage. 

Kanawha Darter male. Photo by Noel M. Burkhead. 

Appalachia Darter Percina gymnocephala is one of the rare, endemic darters of the New River.  Although it has no special state or federal status, its distribution and status has never been evaluated.    For more information,  click on this link.    Not much is known about the Appalachia Darter and its life history.  It's safe to say that as a New River endemic it's adapted for cool water and inhabits cobble and boulder habitats.  

Appalachia Darter.  Photo by Isaac Szabo. 

One cannot discuss the percid fishes of the upper New River without a mention of the Walleye Sander vitreus.  Jenkins and Burkhead (1994) considered the Walleye to be an introduced species.  However, a genetically unique walleye was discovered in the New River and is the basis for a restoration effort (Palmer et al. 2007).  Jenkins and Burkhead relied on the fact that there were no reports of Walleye by 19^th century investigators (Cope 1868 paper) and the Virginia Fish Commission.  However, no targeted investigations were ever done and intensive stocking of Walleye in Claytor Lake began after 1939.  These introductions were traceable to Lake Erie and Hudson bay stock.  Work is now underway in the Hallerman Genetics Lab at Virginia Tech to examine and continue marker-assisted selection.  The unique walleye strain is a river-spawning Walleye and may have adaptive traits that permit it to survive better in the New River.  They grow to large size (see photo). 

 

Historic state record Walleye from the New River.  22 pounds and 8 ounces.  

The endemic fishes of the New River are unique and their limited distribution means many anthropogenic activities may have a disproportionate influence on species viability.  The construction of dams on the mainstem New and its tributaries fragmented populations and eliminated coolwater habitats. In addition to hydropower dams, emerging threats include introduction of nonnative species and climate change (Angermeier and Pinder 2015).  New River is a special place for people – and now you know why its special for fishes.  

References

Angermeier, P.L., and M.J. Pinder. 2015.  Viewing the status of Virginia’s environment through the lens of freshwater fishes.  Virginia Journal of Science 66(3). Article 2 http://digitalcommons.odu.edu/vjs/vol66/iss3/2   

Cope, E.D. 1868.  On the distribution of freshwater fishes in the Allegheny region of southwestern Virginia. Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, Series 2, 6, part 3, article 5 (1869):207-247.

Easton R.S. and D.J. Orth D.J. 1994. Fishes of the main channel New River, West Virginia. Virginia Journal of Science 45: 265–277.

Easton R.S., D.J. Orth, and N.M. Burkhead. 1993. The first collection of rudd, Scardinius erythrophthalmus (Cyprinidae), in the New River, West Virginia. Journal of Freshwater Ecology 8:263–264.

Hilling, C.D., S.L.Wolfe, J.R. Copeland, D.J. Orth, E. M. Hallerman. In press.  Occurrence of Two non-indigenous catostomid fishes in the New River, Virginia. Northeastern Naturalist

Jenkins, R.E. and N.M. Burkhead. 1994. Freshwater fishes of Virginia. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.

Keplinger, B.J.  An experimental study of vertical habitat use and habitat shifts in single-species and mixed-species shoals of native and nonnative congeneric cyprinids.  Masters thesis, West Virginia University, Morgantown.

Mayden, R.L. 1991.  Cyprinids of the New World.  Pages 240-263 in I.J. Winfield and J.S. Nelson, editors. Cyprinid Fishes: Systematics, Biology and exploitation.  Springer, Dordrecht

Palmer, G.C., J. Williams, M. Scott, K. Finne, N. Johnson, D. Dutton, B.R. Murphy, and E.M. Hallerman, 2007. Genetic marker-assisted restoration of the presumptive native walleye fishery in the New River, Virginia and West Virginia. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fisheries and Wildlife Agencies 61:17-22.

Shingleton, M.V., C.H. Hocutt, and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. 1981.  Temperature preference of the New River Shiner.  Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 110:660-661.

Spotila, J.A., K.A. Moskey, and P.S. Prince.  2015.  Geologic controls on bedrock channel width in large, slowly-eroding catchments: Case study of the New River in eastern North America.  Geomorphology 230:51-63. 

Social Media is About the Social, by Don Orth

When the subject turns to teaching, I often hear  “But I like to lecture. everyone is doing it. And my students like my lectures too!”  Lectures are familiar media. Non scholae sed vitae discimus is Latin, which translates to “"We do not learn for school, but for life.”  And in life there are thousands of things we must do and seldom does it mean a 50- minute lecture.  Rather we need to help students develop meta-skills for the 21st century (Neumeier 2013). Newsflash: note-taking and test-taking are not meta-skills needed for the workplace.

Today social media is changing the way we communicate, share ideas, and develop networks. It must play a role in teaching. Therefore, I advocate a holistic approach to learning social media that is incorporated in my teaching practices.  We learn from each other, therefore a community of practice approach can be inform better practice. Paul Tess, in 2013,  wrote that the “ubiquity of social media is no more apparent than at the university where the technology is transforming the ways students communicate, collaborate, and learn.”   Last year I was asked to present a talk on the trials and tribulations of adopting social media in college education.  It should have been titled "Damned If You Do: Adopting Social Media in Teaching."

Social media has an low entrance fee, but it’s constantly changing.  Since the beginnings of a movement toward user-created content in the 1990’s, earliest social network sites such as Sixdegrees.com and Friendster morphed into Web 2.0 apps (Van Dijck 2013). My notes and manuscript were in a constant state of flux since the uses of social media in college is highly dynamic.  Therefore, you should read this article  now, before it gets any further out of date.  My favorite article, published since this manuscript was finalized, popularized the "nerd of trust" meme in the #SciCommJC.   You too can become a Nerd of Trust, just click here.  Someone needs to create the emoji.

Nerd of Trust is a real thing.  Read about practices of Facebook for science outreach here.

But Tess and others (many others, read my article) provide evidence of the positives and shortcomings of social media.  Hence it is the damned if you do -- damned if you don't dichotomy.  I make five modest suggestions for how to begin.   The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, its to post the wrong answer (Cunningham’s Law).  If I'm wrong, I'm confident that some astute reader will point it out.   No one doubts the pleasures and benefits of some aspects of social media – what major innovation in history has had no benefits? This issue is balance, and how we get enough distance from our own embedding in social media to assess that balance. The paper makes the case that some social media uses are maturing and may prove to be useful additions to your pedagogical toolkit.  If interested, read the pre-print of the article here. 

We should facilitate our students growth in their process of creating a digital identity. Our choice of pedagogy speaks volumes to our students.  Are we communicating these messages? You are important and you matter!  Your voice matters! Your feelings matter! Your life matters! Your story matters!  (Jones and Leverenz 2017).  Do we teach our students how to protect their privacy and intellectual property while sharing ideas via social media?   Twitter’s policy states that “By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). Facebook’s states that:  “For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).”

Elements of personal digital brand development pedagogy from Jones and Leverenz (2017).

Seventy five percent of academics do not use social media to express their views on scholarship or politics. Do they believe you need to get through the journal pay wall or take their classes to learn from them?  If you are one of these academics, I encourage you to try something new.  Read this up-to-date guide on the A to Z of social media! You're damned in you do, or damned if you don't.

References  

Carrigan, M. 2016. Social Media for Academics. London: Sage.

Jones, B. and C. Leverenz. 2017. Building personal brands with digital storytelling ePortfolios. International Journal of ePortfolio   7:67-91  

Joosten, T. 2012.  Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices.  Jossey-Bass, 144 pp.

Lipschultz, J.H. 2017.  Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics, Second Edition. Routledge. 396 pp. 

--> McLain, C.R. 2017. Practices and promises of Facebook for science outreach: Becoming a “Nerd of Trust.” PLoS Biology 15(6): e2002020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2002020
Neumeier, M. 2013. Meta skills: The five skills for the robotic age. New Riders, San Francisco, CA 
Orth, D.J. 2017. Social media may empower fisheries students via learning networks. Fisheries  

Tess, P. 2013. The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) – A literature review. Computers in Human Behavior 29(5):A60–A68.

van Dijck, J. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Hackelbacks and Old Spade Face, by Don Orth

Scaphirhynchus sturgeons arose in North America but remain among the least studied fishes.  Scaphirhynchus is pronounced Ska-fur-rink-us. Fossils resembling the ancestral Scaphirhynchus were dated from the late Cretaceous (Grande and Hilton 2006).  This fossil (pictured below) was discovered in modern day Montana and the sturgeon swam in rivers at the same time that Tyranosaurus rex, Hadrosaurs, and Ceretopsians roamed the Cretaceous landscapes 70 million years ago.  The sturgeon fishes (Acipenseridae) date back 200 million years and sturgeons exist in all continents of the northern hemisphere. The sturgeons are primarily cartilaginous and lack a backbone with separate vertebrae.  The closest relative of the Scaphirhynchus sturgeons are members of the genus Pseudoscaphirhynchus, which includes three critically endangered species from the Aral Sea basin.  The Scaphirhynchus sturgeons are ideally suited for life in large, fast flowing rivers that formed when the Rocky Mountains arose and the great inland sea receded. Recent molecular genetics methods confirmed the distinctiveness of three species: Shovelnose Sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus, Pallid Sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus, and Alabama sturgeon Scaphirhynchus suttkusi (Ray et al. 2007).

Illustration of a specimen named Scaphirhynchus rafinesquii by Jacob Heckel 1836

Fossil sturgeon Priscosturion longipinnis from ~78 MYA. Image from The Field Museum photo archives image A93851c, Chicago, Illinois. photo by Eric Hilton source

The current status of the three Scaphirhynchus sturgeons is precarious due to harvest and dams. Too much harvest means too few breeders.  Too many dams impede the free-flowing river habitat needed for spawning and early development of young shovelnose sturgeons. Pallid Sturgeon is the largest of the three and critically endangered.  The Pallid Sturgeon recovery program  involves three regional teams that must coordinate and implement recovery actions for pallid sturgeon in Recovery Priority Management Areas encompassing the waters of the Missouri and lower Mississippi River basins of the United States.   Watch this video to get a better idea of recovery actions. 

 

Alabama Sturgeon was feared to be extinct as the last specimen handled by a biologist was in 2007.  Watch this video that describes the recent discovery of environmental DNA of the Alabama Sturgeon. Twenty-five major locks and dams on the rivers of the Mobile Basin fragment the habitat where the Alabama Sturgeon lives.  Shovelnose Sturgeon are listed as threatened because their current range is greatly reduced (Phelps et al. 2017).  

It’s mind boggling to consider the millions of years of survival of the ancestral Scaphirhynchus sturgeon through many major climate disruptions, mass extinction, multiple glacial advances and retreats, and river course changes.  The three species of shovelnose sturgeon are well adapted for life in the murky waters.  Shovelnose Sturgeon complete all aspects of their life cycle in the main channel of rivers. They are often caught by anglers who fish with worms in shifting sands.  Here the anglers call them “Sand Sturgeon” because of their behavior of holding position in sand and associated dune bedforms even at high flows. 

 

Illustrations of the Pallid Sturgeon (top), Shovenose Sturgeon (middle), and Alabama Sturgeon (bottom).  Sources:    Fishes of Illinois, Flickr,  and Patrick O’Neil  Fishes of Alabama.  Note: the long caudal filaments are typical of only young sturgeon (< 40mm). 

Tens of millions of years living in the large muddy rivers produced a fish with body form and adaptations like no other fish.  The shape of the head earned it the name “old spade face” and “flathead sturgeon” and the bony scutes on the mid-dorsal ridge gave it the name “hackleback.”  The mouth is ventrally located and protrusible and the snout has four long barbels in front of the mouth.

Ventral surface of the head of Shovelnose Sturgeon. Photo by Corey Raimond

Close up of the head of "Old Spade Face" or Shovelnose Sturgeon in Missouri River. Photo by Sam Stukel. 

Sturgeons throughout the world are at risk of overharvest due to the lucrative caviar market.   The Shovelnose Sturgeon is no exception and commercial harvesters in Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wisconsin target Shovelnose Sturgeon, many solely for the roe markets (Koch and Quist 2010).  The caviar is marketed as Hackelback caviar and sells for $24 per ounce.  Therefore, an individual gravid female can be worth thousands of dollars.   Harvest pressure to meet the caviar market demands will increase. Therefore, harvest restrictions, which vary among states, are needed to protect populations from overharvest (Koch and Quist 2010). 

Hackelback Sturgeon caviar  Source

The Scaphirhynchus sturgeons have morphological adaptations that are very unique.  The small, adhesive eggs develop quickly into yolk sac larvae which develop as they drift with river currents. Consequently, reservoirs and backwater habitats allow the larvae to sink to the bottom instead of staying in the drift.   The drift hypothesis maintains that the small sturgeon larvae must have sufficient river length in order to drift and develop for many days.  Consequently, Scaphirhynchus sturgeons need spawning grounds and sufficient river length for larval development and drift for populations to persist.  

Yolk sac larva of Shovelnose Sturgeon.  Illustration by Murrie V. Graser

  Juvenile shovelnose sturgeon. USFWS.

The head, bony scutes, barbels with dense arrays of taste buds, and a spiral valve intestine are additional morphological traits unique to the Scaphirhynchus sturgeons.  The bottom of the body is a flat plane,  protected with bony denticles, which allow the fish to swim right at the river bottom and be protected from abrasion.  The body surface is protected by rows of large bony scutes interspersed with smaller denticles.  The mid dorsal, lateral, and ventral ridges form distinct keels. The combination of a flat head, small gas bladder and long caudal filament serves to align the fish in the current but close to the bottom. The whiptail or caudal filament is often lost among older specimens.  They possess numerous electrosensory pit organs on the ventral surface of the rostrum, large nares,  and numerous taste buds on papillose barbels, lips, gill rakers and esophagus (Weisel 1979).   Electrosensory and chemosensory organs all of which serve to facilitate efficient feeding on benthic or drift-feeding invertivores, feeding largely on Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera, Chironomidae, and other small invertebrates (Phelps et al. 2017).   These benthic organisms are consumed via a highly protractile mouth, extending 2/3rds of the head depth.   Digestion is also facilitated by a spiral valve intestine, a highly coiled structure to increase nutrient absorption.  Spiral valve intestines are only present in sharks, skates, rays, and primitive bony fishes.

Scalation pattern from dorsal to ventral for Shovelnose Sturgeon (Weisel 1978)

Head of Shovelnose Sturgeon showing protrusible mouth and barbels (Weisel 1979).

Papillae on barbel of Shovelnose Sturgeon. (Weisel 1979)

Diagram of viscera of the Shovelnose Sturgeon (Weisel 1979).

Like many large riverine fishes, the Shovelnose Sturgeon relies on movement through a mosaic of different habitats as they grow and complete their life cycle (Phelps et al. 2017).   Quinton Phelps, Assistant Professor at West Virginia University, recorded one Shovelnose Sturgeon that moved over 1,000 miles in a single year and others that traveled more than 500 miles in one year.   Therefore, long, undammed and multiple rivers are essential to sustain our remaining Shovelnose Sturgeon populations. These rivers are working rivers that drain industrial and agricultural watersheds and serve as navigation channels for commercial barge traffic.  Habitat degradation, river connectivity, industrial contaminants (PCBs), and entrainment in tow barge prop wash remain contemporary concerns for viability of Shovelnose Sturgeon populations.  Old Spade Face just might live on for many more millions of years.

References

Grande, L., and E.J. Hilton. 2006.  An exquisitely preserved skeleton representing a primitive sturgeon from the Upper Cretaceous Judith River formation of Montana (Acipenseriformes: Acipenseridae: n. gen. and sp.). Memoirs Journal Paleontology 80:1–39.

Heckel, J. J.  1836. Scaphirhynchus, eine neue Fischgattung aus der Ordnung der Chondropterygier mit freien Kiemen. Annalen des Wiener Museums der Naturgeschichte v. 1: 69-78, Pl. 8. 

Koch, J.D., and M.C. Quist. 2010. Current status and trends in shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) management and conservation.  Journal of Applied Ichthyology 26:491-498.

Phelps, Q., S.J. Tripp, M.J. Hamel, J. Koch, E.J. Heist, J.E. Garvey, K.M. Kappenman, and M.A.H. Webb.  2017.  Status of knowledge of the Shovelnose Sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus, Rafinesque, 1820).  Journal of Applied Ichthyology 32(Suppl. 1):249-260.

Ray, J.M., C.B. Dillman, R.M. Wood, B.R. Kuhajda, and R.L. Mayden. 2007: Microsatellite variation among river sturgeons of the genus Scaphirhynchus (Actinopterygii: Acipenseridae): a preliminary assessment of hybridization. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 23:304– 312.

Weisel, G.F, 1978. The integument and caudal filament of the Shovelnose Sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus platorynchus.  The American Midland Naturalist 100:179-189.

Weisel, G.F. 1979. Histology and the feeding and digestive organs of the Shovelnose Sturgeon.  Copeia 1979:518-525.