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 11 June 2010

Expedition Day -3

Tip of the day: When you organise an expedition to China the first hurdle when you are French is to get a visa...7 attempts later here we are ready to kick off.
Leaving Monday the 14th @ 16h30, luggage not ready yet but starting to look like a chemist as we have (lead by the French hypochondriac) prepared ourselves against all kinds of nasty surprises :-).
 On arrival we will do some shopping (waders, waterproofs etc.) as it is cheaper in China, visit the forbidden city and drive off the next day for our first sampling site.So far it seems straight forward.

 Rudy
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4 comments:

  1. Pedro M. LEUNDA13 June 2010 at 12:20

    Rudy, good luck with the expedition!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carolyn Knight13 June 2010 at 12:51

    Congratulations on an exciting project! I bet you'll have plenty of adventures along the way! How long is the expedition going to take? Good luck!

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  3. Anonymous14 June 2010 at 02:16

    My best wishes for expedition!!
    I´m sure you will enjoy the food, but give up hope on coffee ;-))

    kind regards
    Irene Z

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gozlan Rachel14 June 2010 at 04:23

    Salut Rudy
    cela fait si longtemps
    c'est magnifique de te savoir dans tout ce que tu aimes
    je te souhaite une tres belle aventure
    et sceintifique et magique aussi

    Bisous pleins de mon affection
    Rachel

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