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. :-)

Saturday 26 June 2010

Day 11-12

In the last two days we have travelled to the Guangdong province (Canton). We haven't seen the sun once since we arrived in China and it now hasn't stop raining for the last 5 days. All rivers are flooded, chocolate brown and difficult to fish. We have now found out that our fish is either not present or in very low abundance in large rivers which is the reason why we haven't caught it in the last three days. It is also a revelation for our Chinese colleagues who in general have very poor ecological knowledge of their fish community. The country is so big that their first priority is to sort out their taxonomy and a vague idea of species distribution.

Tonight we are in Wuzhou and moving back up to Guilin (where they fish with cormorants). There is a colleague of Yahui’s who works at the University there and has already collected the samples for us. I will give a seminar on fish invasion and an insight into our project.

Haito, our driver, is leaving us tomorrow as his dad is unwell and we will have to find someone to replace him. He has been so reliable and good driver so far that we are all worried that we won’t find someone as good. The roads here in China are lethal with no rules on over taking and tailgating at high speed in tremendous rain. Today we had a near miss accident and we all felt that we did well to invest in four new tyres at the start of the trip!

Yesterday, lunch time was the highlight of the day when we had pot noodles! It made a change from intestines, stomach or other local delicacies...I know that you all think that we are a bunch of softies but your perspective on food takes a leap forward after 12 days here.

Bernd and Rob are slowly getting ready for tomorrow’s contest. They try to get round it by saying that at least they are in the second round and that it wouldn’t be shameful to be knocked out by such a good team as Germany or England but the truth is that one of them will be gutted the next morning in the car :-)
Tonight, I took a picture of Rob where he looks bigger than Bernd. I suspect that it is psychological warfare ahead of tomorrow night...I leave you to judge.

Rudy


NB: We are planning to get back to Beijing two days before schedule to revisit the Academy’s fish collection which means that we are going to slightly modify our initial route
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous27 June 2010 at 10:51

    C'est l'allemagne qui de gagner face a l'angleterre par 4 a 1 en je ne sais pas 8e ou4e de finale. J'espere que ca ne fera pas des disputes entre vous. ahahah
    frederic

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  2. Anonymous27 June 2010 at 11:57

    Taking food and eating seriously seems to be something french and chinese people have in common ;-)

    When we fished in the Danube backwaters during floods, the small fish were very close to the shore (flooded vegetation). E-fishing is not an option, I guess? If yes, you might get them from the shore.

    I´ll keep my fingers crossed for you and your new driver!

    all the best
    Irene

    P.S.: With respect to Fredrics comment: as Germany won so many times, it would be the UK´s turn to win, n'est pas?

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  3. Anonymous27 June 2010 at 21:02

    Keep going! You can do this! It looks like you've overcome many difficulties already. I wish you good luck and strong stomachs for the rest of the trip.
    Take care, Kathleen
    P.S. Sorry Rob, Germany simply plays better soccer than England :o). Btw, which anaesthetic will you be using to 'gut' Rob in the car?

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  4. Rafa Miranda28 June 2010 at 04:15

    Take care, Rudy, Rob and Bernd. I believe that you have sufficient resources (and a very hard stomach) to survey this proof. I know that it is very easy here to recommend and advise in my comfortable office… so, take care, think that now all is very “heavy”, but you have to know that you are living a great adventure!!

    Cheers,
    Rafa

    I am very sorry for the France team, Rudy. And congratulations for Bernd… and, well, my sorrows, Rob. Undoubtedly, logical process is being in this Word Cup, and perhaps a Germany-Spain final is the next future!! Of course, only a final ending is possible, and the Cup will fly to Spain ;-)

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