A fish on the trail of Genghis Khan

In the world of fish Topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva, a small cyprinid native to East China, has matched and gone beyond the great Mongol invasion, resulting in the vast range expansion covering much of Asia, Europe and now with a foothold in North Africa. The stealth invasion started in the 1950’s with the end of the Chinese civil war (from around 1840 to 1949) which had restricted human population mobility and trade. At that time, there was an increasing need for developing new sources of animal protein and black carp, grass carp, silver carp and big head carp were rapidly introduced from East China especially from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin to many other places including Yunnan, Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang. This species had been cultured traditionally in East China for a long time with specific culturing techniques. These carp introductions for aquaculture have been the beachhead of topmouth gudgeon’s great escape.

Small in size (maximum length circa 9cm), highly fecund with batch spawning and nest guarding behaviour and highly tolerant to environmental changes, topmouth gudgeon has all the attributes of a successful invader. Its first introduction outside of China was in reservoirs and ponds around the black sea as part of a fish farming agreement between China and the former Eastern block. Following long distances and hitchhiking cross country with movements of carp, it rapidly escaped and colonised local waters, dominating communities in ponds and lakes. Recently identified as a healthy carrier of a deadly non-species specific eukaryotic parasite Sphaerothecum destruens, it now poses a threat to European fish diversity.

Preserved material will be compared to material collected from populations established from the first introduction in each country within the non-native range. Topmouth gudgeon has been introduced for several decades to countries with clear contrasting climatic conditions such as Poland, Italy and Algeria. This will provide a unique opportunity to study adaptation under contrasting climatic conditions. Populations will be compared for their life history traits and parasitic communities as well as their population genetic structure within native range but also across introduced range. In addition, live topmouth gudgeon will be brought back from China and various parts of the non-native range to characterise the reaction norms of different populations along thermal gradients. Individual fitness, measured as the number of reproductive events, size of batches and larval growth will be measured for several contrasting populations under a range of controlled thermal challenges. This will allow the evolutionary and phenotypic shift that has occurred during topmouth gudgeon invasion to be measured.

Beyond the immediate scientific interest this expedition represents a cultural and historical journey where an innocent movement of fish from the East coast to the West part of China has rippled all the way to England 50 years later.

The TEAM

ALL ALONG THE EXPEDITION I WILL KEEP THE BLOG ALIVE SO GET IN TOUCH, ASK QUESTIONS AND I WILL BE AS REACTIVE AS POSSIBLE TAKING YOU ALONG THE JOURNEY. :-)

Friday, 18 June 2010

Day 4

Woke up at seven and decided to go to the local market instead, we found lots of TMG for sale and Yahui bought some (150). Then we went back to the hotel to process the fish. It was surreal, us in a Stalinian designed room processing our samples along the window ledge and talking about football (Bernd claiming that Germany will be winning the world cup…). The Chinese breakfast consists of a selection of hot dishes including eggs, duck, mushrooms and noodles accompanied by a hot rice soup which is not the easiest thing to digest while stuck in the car.We set off for the south at 11h00…we are not getting used to being cramped in the car for such a long distance. I can see it being a major issue for the days to come. Today we passed the Yellow River. Most of the Northern rivers are extremely low when not dried. It is a combination of mismanagement and climatic conditions. In many ways China is a really strange country, a mix between Africa, Russia and Europe at the start of the 20th century. People look at us, laughing at our funny foreign faces and often ask to have their photo's taken with us. They all seem very extraverted, not at all what you would expect after so many years of a communist regime.Tomorrow wake up at 4.30am, direction the local market to sample TMG. We are desperate to go and collect the fish ourselves but it is a difficult message to get across to Yahui who wants to limit our efforts. In this province (Shangong) there should be two different types of TMG called floweri and Parvula and hopefully we will come across these two types in the market. Either these are P.parva that have a dramatic change of look or a separate species. Either way this needs to be checked.I missed the family from day 1 and it seems weird to imagine that I will not see them for another 4 weeks. But our work is so exciting that it helps to fill the void.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous18 June 2010 at 14:14

    Salut Rudy,c'est avec plaisir que je te suis sur ton blog. Pourquoi partir aussi loin pour pêcher de si petits poissons?? Trouves moi des infos pour des stages en aquaculture pour mes petits élèves. Profites bien de tes 30 jours. J'ai eu un élève chinois qui me disait souvent un proverbe qui me plait bien : parler ne fait pas cuire le riz!! Bon périple et bonne pêche(s). Bises. Isa

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  2. Anonymous19 June 2010 at 08:15

    Bravo, ton expédition avec tes collègues a l'air de bien se passer. Les images sont intéressantes et l'ambiance semble détendue. Merci pour toutes ces nouvelles, bonne continuation, bonne réussite et bisous de Maman et de la famille Rey Gozlan.

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  3. Anonymous19 June 2010 at 15:11

    this blog is an excellent idea, sharing your experience along the way...,very interesting...
    wishing you good luck, and a very fascinating and fulfilling time...
    denise

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous20 June 2010 at 13:06

    Salut, petit frere. Content d'avoir de tes nouvelles au jour le jour. Ca change.

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