Mutualisms are complex, interspecific relationships, which sometimes create “selfish‐herds” as individuals of each species compete to maximize their own fitness. Nest association , where individuals of different species spawn on a nest created by a host species, is a reproductive interaction characteristic of some minnows (Leuciscidae) and is considered mutualistic despite mimicking the behavior labeled “brood parasitism.” We...

Walleye is an important sportfish across eastern North America, is commercially fished in the Laurentian Great Lakes region, and has been introduced outside its native range. Thirty-eight Walleye populations within six watersheds across the Eastern Highlands and other portions of the native range were screened at eight microsatellite DNA loci to better understand evolutionary history and to inform fishery management and conser...

Candy darter Etheostoma osburni, a federally endangered non-game fish, has been extirpated from most of its historic range in Virginia and now occurs in four isolated populations in the New River drainage. Understanding of population genetic structure will provide insights into the recent natural history of the species and can inform conservation management. Our objectives were to: characterize population genetic structure, es...

Clinch Dace (Chrosomus sp. cf. saylori) is a newly recognized and yet-undescribed species of minnow with a restricted and fragmented distribution in the upper Tennessee River basin in southwestern Virginia, USA. We collected Clinch Dace from seven streams and observed variations at nine selectively neutral microsatellite DNA loci to infer population genetic processes and identify units for conservation management. Bayesian clu...

Species of the genus Pseudoplatystoma, the long-whiskered catfishes, are important in commercial and recreational fisheries in South America, and some species have become key to regional aquaculture. Some species of the genus are under pressure due to overfishing and the negative impacts of dams. Six questions are asked in this review: (i) What species are in the genus, and where are they distributed? (ii) What are the life hi...

Genetics and biotechnology make increasingly important contributions to fishery science, fishery management, aquaculture, and related fields [...]

Traditional breeding techniques, applied incrementally over thousands of years, have yielded huge benefits in the characteristics of agricultural animals. This is a result of significant, measurable changes to the genomes of those animal species and breeds. Genome editing techniques may now be applied to achieve targeted DNA sequence alterations, with the potential to affect traits of interest to production of agricultural ani...

Direct and indirect measures of individual movement provide valuable knowledge regarding a species’ resiliency to environmental change. Information on patterns of movement can inform species management and conservation but is lacking for many imperiled fishes. The Candy Darter, Etheostoma osburni, is an endangered stream fish with a dramatically reduced distribution in Virginia in the eastern United States, now known from only...

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement aga...

Striped bass is the subject of important commercial and sport fisheries in North America. The Roanoke River drainage—especially Smith Mountain Lake, Leesville Lake, and Kerr Reservoir—has popular recreational striped bass fisheries. After construction of five hydroelectric dams, populations became landlocked, declined, and have been supplemented by stocking. A key basis for responsibly augmenting populations is to characterize...

Larval fish ecology is poorly characterized because sampling is difficult and tools for phenotypically identifying larvae are poorly developed. While DNA barcoding can help address the latter problem, ‘universal’ primers do not work for all fish species. The Roanoke River in the southeastern United States includes seven darters (Family Percide: Tribe Etheostomatini). We made 393 collections of larval fishes in 2015 and 2018, e...