Interesting Brook Trout Info from a Scientist

[rrt]

His saying that what most of us call brook trout are not truly brook trout seems to be a matter of semantics. As the video progresses, he himself refers to these fish as brook trout.

Many of the situations he discusses in the short video are pretty common knowledge -- invasives, damage to riparian landscape, etc.

Still, it was somewhat interesting to listen to what he had to say.

 

[DaveKile]

Strains is a breeders concept(not a conservation genetics one) based on visual traits, thats essentially what stauffer got roasted for. The genetics could be divergent to answer your question. Depends on the length of time barrier present, selection events above and below, founder effect/genetic bottlenecks to begin with above, and levels of genetic diversity/gene flow in both systems and many more factors us lay folk don’t understand. For most accurate answer ask “Mr. brook trout” himself , Dr. Kazyak. Guy is a world expert on brook trout conservation genetics.

So who does Dr. Kazyak work for?

 

[wildtrout2]

The genetics could be divergent to answer your question. Depends on the length of time barrier present, selection events above and below, founder effect/genetic bottlenecks to begin with above...

The 20'-30' waterfalls that I mentioned, would have to have been in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

 

[Kgregor12]

So who does Dr. Kazyak work for?

USGS

 

[Kgregor12]

The 20'-30' waterfalls that I mentioned, would have to have been in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Long as no bucket biology taking place prob distinct.

 

[Kgregor12]

So who does Dr. Kazyak work for?

Here is some of his publications, fascinating stuff.

David Kazyak

U.S. Geological Survey - Cited by 379

scholar.google.com

 

[JimKennedy]

Long as no bucket biology taking place prob distinct.

Possibly distinct-ish. While a trout could not jump a 20 to 30 foot vertical falls, they could absolutely survive a drop, thrive and reproduce.

A distinct gene pool could exist upstream from the falls, but it would almost certainly infiltrate the downstream population. Depending on the stability of the upstream and downstream populations, the downstream population may have incorporated suitable dna from the wash over fish in a distinctive way, even as the upstream group remains unchanged.

My guess as a non scientist who started started college in 1987 as a bio major, is each stream or linked watershed eventually ends up with it’s own strain of trout (or bass or channel catfish).

Isolation of a self sustaining breeding population will cause distinctive characteristics for two major reasons:

Traits that are unfavorable to life in the watershed will quickly be reduced in the breeding group because the fish without the unfavorable traits have a survival advantage that makes them more likely to become successful breeders.

Subtle traits with no impact on an individual’s ability to survive will become a hallmark of Trout in that particular watershed. This is called founders effect. An example is there’s was a wild only creek near where my dad grew up that had a strain of wild browns that consistently produced a small percentage of albino fish. No doubt this made them easier targets for birds, but not enough that the trait got wiped out (at least when my dad was a kid).

I’m not sure of the creek’s name, but I recall him pointing it out to me in the 1970s for a scenic overlook in the greater hazleton area. I hope those albino wild browns are still there.

 

[Kgregor12]

Possibly distinct-ish. While a trout could not jump a 20 to 30 foot vertical falls, they could absolutely survive a drop, thrive and reproduce.

A distinct gene pool could exist upstream from the falls, but it would almost certainly infiltrate the downstream population. Depending on the stability of the upstream and downstream populations, the downstream population may have incorporated suitable dna from the wash over fish in a distinctive way, even as the upstream group remains unchanged.

My guess as a non scientist who started started college in 1987 as a bio major, is each stream or linked watershed eventually ends up with it’s own strain of trout (or bass or channel catfish).

Isolation of a self sustaining breeding population will cause distinctive characteristics for two major reasons:

Traits that are unfavorable to life in the watershed will quickly be reduced in the breeding group because the fish without the unfavorable traits have a survival advantage that makes them more likely to become successful breeders.

Subtle traits with no impact on an individual’s ability to survive will become a hallmark of Trout in that particular watershed. This is called founders effect. An example is there’s was a wild only creek near where my dad grew up that had a strain of wild browns that consistently produced a small percentage of albino fish. No doubt this made them easier targets for birds, but not enough that the trait got wiped out (at least when my dad was a kid).

I’m not sure of the creek’s name, but I recall him pointing it out to me in the 1970s for a scenic overlook in the greater hazleton area. I hope those albino wild browns are still there.

When you talk to the conservation genetics folks the brook trout don’t go down over those things much. There is a saying “they just know” not to. Not saying it never happens but would assume rate of gene flow from other streams nearby prob > rate gene flow down over falls if other systems near by based on what was presented at STAC Chesapeake Brook Trout conservation genetics symposium a few years ago.

 

[wildtrout2]

Possibly distinct-ish. While a trout could not jump a 20 to 30 foot vertical falls, they could absolutely survive a drop, thrive and reproduce.

A distinct gene pool could exist upstream from the falls, but it would almost certainly infiltrate the downstream population. Depending on the stability of the upstream and downstream populations, the downstream population may have incorporated suitable dna from the wash over fish in a distinctive way, even as the upstream group remains unchanged.

My guess as a non scientist who started started college in 1987 as a bio major, is each stream or linked watershed eventually ends up with it’s own strain of trout (or bass or channel catfish).

Isolation of a self sustaining breeding population will cause distinctive characteristics for two major reasons:

Traits that are unfavorable to life in the watershed will quickly be reduced in the breeding group because the fish without the unfavorable traits have a survival advantage that makes them more likely to become successful breeders.

Subtle traits with no impact on an individual’s ability to survive will become a hallmark of Trout in that particular watershed. This is called founders effect. An example is there’s was a wild only creek near where my dad grew up that had a strain of wild browns that consistently produced a small percentage of albino fish. No doubt this made them easier targets for birds, but not enough that the trait got wiped out (at least when my dad was a kid).

I’m not sure of the creek’s name, but I recall him pointing it out to me in the 1970s for a scenic overlook in the greater hazleton area. I hope those albino wild browns are still there.

That is interesting! I've never even herd of albino wild brown trout. Probably, much more rare than even a wild tiger trout.

 

[Mike]

“When you talk to the conservation genetics folks the brook trout don’t go down over those things much. There is a saying “they just know” not to.”

Call me a strong doubter…putting it mildly.

 

[Kgregor12]

“When you talk to the conservation genetics folks the brook trout don’t go down over those things much. There is a saying “they just know” not to.”

I’m not buying that!

I mean they have telemetry equipment that track movements and fin clips from different tributaries that use gene flow to tell exactly which populations have been mixing. I’d encourage you to reach out to them with your skepticism, you would likely get a very objective response based on the above tools used to track brook trout movement. Being out in the field for decades can give us great perspective but sometimes our eyes lie to us or we make assumptions based on what we see and this is where the genetic data is really handy.

 

[wildtrout2]

“When you talk to the conservation genetics folks the brook trout don’t go down over those things much. There is a saying “they just know” not to.”

Call me a strong doubter…putting it mildly.

Is it possible that the sudden, strong pull of the current just before/upstream of a waterfall could signal a drop is imminent, somehow signaling to a trout to back off? Just an unprofessional thought.

Edit: I added "sudden" because it might be a factor?

 

[Kgregor12]

Is it possible that the strong pull of the current just before/upstream of a waterfall could signal a drop is imminent, signaling to a trout to back off? Just an unprofessional thought.

Not really sure what makes the low gene flow measured in those situations happen , good thought though. I think when they mentioned at STAC that “They just know” it was kind of half joking but just indicating it seems to serve as somewhat of a downstream/upstream bidirectional barrier.

 

[troutbert]

Genetic research on brook trout is very interesting.

But what changes in management do you expect to see coming from these new details?

Removing artificial barriers to brookie movement, such as replacing perched culverts, is important, but that has been known for quite a while. Barrier removal work has been going on for some years.

The most important management change that should be done right now is ending the stocking of hatchery trout (of any species) over native brook trout populations.

That is a common practice in PA. I'm not sure how common it is in other states. Running a put-and-take program over native brook trout suppresses their populations.

Ending stocking over native brook trout would allow increases in their populations, which would have important genetic implications. Larger populations would allow more genetic exchange and reduce the genetic isolation that they are discussing.

 

[Kgregor12]

Genetic research on brook trout is very interesting.

But what changes in management do you expect to see coming from these new details?

Removing artificial barriers to brookie movement, such as replacing perched culverts, is important, but that has been known for quite a while. Barrier removal work has been going on for some years.

The most important management change that should be done right now is ending the stocking of hatchery trout (of any species) over native brook trout populations.

That is a common practice in PA. I'm not sure how common it is in other states. Running a put-and-take program over native brook trout suppresses their populations.

Ending stocking over native brook trout would allow increases in their populations, which would have important genetic implications. Larger populations would allow more genetic exchange and reduce the genetic isolation that they are discussing.

Native brook trout conservation genetics focuses on adaptive capacity a.k.a their ability to survive stressors. So the kind of work that comes out of that is a lot more than taking out culverts.

In some cases it may in fact allow us to leave culverts that block aquatic organism passage of invasive species in place and create artificial gene flow of pre-selected individual brook trout above a barrier from large interconnected systems with high genetic diversity(genetic rescue). In other cases it may allow us to prioritize one population over another for conservation actions if monetary resources or willpower is limited(PA’s biggest problem). It may inform fisheries scientists to prioritize a large project on a genetically diverse population over an inbred one giving the effort and money more of a chance to succeed. It can also sound the alarm to fisheries scientists if a population is in trouble when maybe demographic data would suggest it is not.

Conservation genetics also allows scientists to reverse estimate population size with just fin clips from 30-50 individual fish giving us a better understanding of their entire population’s resiliency or other import conclusions that can be drawn from such data. Conservation genetics has given us YY super male invasive brook trout that helped re-solidy Apache trout’s place in the southwest US, improve their ESA status, and eventually the same will be true in some places in the east with other invasive trout species thanks to altering invasive trout genetics. And I have to add that conservation genetics is just in its infancy, the brook trout genome has only been recently full sequenced through genomics. In the future could gene editing techniques such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats be used to insert beneficial co-adapted gene complexes? Maybe

All that was just to give you a flavor of how much more conservation genetics is than ripping out culverts. However, there are not words strong enough to describe how much I agree with you on stocking….which is also a conservation genetics issue and so much more as well as you eluded to. It basically shoots brook trout management in both hands and feet and is way more damaging than even the majority of the most fervent brook trout advocates in the fly fishing community understand.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

I'd venture a guess that Brook Trout may vary genetically from watershed to watershed. I caught Brookies in North Georgia that were probably as close to pure strain as you can get, along with some in South Carolina that came after a goat climb up a tributary to the Chattooga River. As far as Brook trout from Long Island there were a lot of them there.GG

 

[Kgregor12]

I'd venture a guess that Brook Trout may vary genetically from watershed to watershed. I caught Brookies in North Georgia that were probably as close to pure strain as you can get, along with some in South Carolina that came after a goat climb up a tributary to the Chattooga River. As far as Brook trout from Long Island there were a lot of them there.GG

Absolutely there is a distinction between a southern and Northern(not as a species mind you) but genetics are different. Heat shock proteins(HSP) allow cellular protein based machinery that functions based on its physical conformation to maintain its shape and not denature during heat stress allowing enzymes and transporters to keep functioning during times of increased temperature. These HSPs have been studied in Mariah Meek’s lab at Michigan State and I imagine others are looking these genetic differences as well. You don’t want to go messing with brook trout’s genes willy nilly because you could in effect disrupt beneficial genes but we are about to lose ALOT of native brook trout to many things(many to stocked invasive species sadly) so it may get to the point unfortunately where the risk vs. reward ratio inverts in certain places across the brook trout’s range as far as looking at individual gene targets for introduction or removal, I do not know when that point would be and do not think anyone does currently.

 

[jifigz]

This is all great information and it is fitting in a thread titled "Interesting Brook Trout Information from a Scientist," but does it really matter? It is neat to talk about on a scientific level, but a simple and unified goal I think we can all support is the cessation of stocking over wild brookies. The best arguments to reach the common folk for that goal are the simple facts that 1) stocking over brookies harms and reduces their population, & 2) the brook trout's range is so severely limited compared to historical ranges that we should do our best to preserve what stream miles they have left. I think this is easily understood by most people, but if they choose to jump on board, well, that's another matter altogether. Most people enjoy their outcomes for sport and not what is best for conservation.

On a totally separate issue but with similar complaints would be our deer herd management. In my opinion, Gary Alt's plan was the best thing that ever happened to deer hunting in PA both from trophy buck perspective and also from a conservation perspective. Many people complain about deer hunting today, however, because his plan greatly reduced the deer herd to help conserve the environment. This means less deer for hunters to see, and therefore less chances of success in the field. Shooting a deer is likely harder in most places than it used to be, but the forests and other ecosystems are healthier.

We all know fishing is the same way. The people want fish to catch and be fun, and what rules our world is the $$. We all know that conserving brookies and their habitat should be a priority, but many people either lack this information or simply don't care because they want a satisfying fishing experience. the best way to reach common people is not through obscure genetic testing and information. It is through simple messages like this: The brook trout is native. It is our state fish. It's range has been severely decreased. We should protect it from further degradation and seek to conserve what brook trout habitat we have left.

Okay, I have ranted enough.

 

[Kgregor12]

This is all great information and it is fitting in a thread titled "Interesting Brook Trout Information from a Scientist," but does it really matter? It is neat to talk about on a scientific level, but a simple and unified goal I think we can all support is the cessation of stocking over wild brookies. The best arguments to reach the common folk for that goal are the simple facts that 1) stocking over brookies harms and reduces their population, & 2) the brook trout's range is so severely limited compared to historical ranges that we should do our best to preserve what stream miles they have left. I think this is easily understood by most people, but if they choose to jump on board, well, that's another matter altogether. Most people enjoy their outcomes for sport and not what is best for conservation.

On a totally separate issue but with similar complaints would be our deer herd management. In my opinion, Gary Alt's plan was the best thing that ever happened to deer hunting in PA both from trophy buck perspective and also from a conservation perspective. Many people complain about deer hunting today, however, because his plan greatly reduced the deer herd to help conserve the environment. This means less deer for hunters to see, and therefore less chances of success in the field. Shooting a deer is likely harder in most places than it used to be, but the forests and other ecosystems are healthier.

We all know fishing is the same way. The people want fish to catch and be fun, and what rules our world is the $$. We all know that conserving brookies and their habitat should be a priority, but many people either lack this information or simply don't care because they want a satisfying fishing experience. the best way to reach common people is not through obscure genetic testing and information. It is through simple messages like this: The brook trout is native. It is our state fish. It's range has been severely decreased. We should protect it from further degradation and seek to conserve what brook trout habitat we have left.

Okay, I have ranted enough.

I would agree with you on an idealogical level on the simple messaging for the masses. The conservation genetics discussion stemmed from Jay Stauffers video which is both incorrect according to his peers as many have pointed out and not great for the public to hear either.

However where the reasonable logic your proposing breaks down is the public ALREADY thinks we are conserving our brook trout RIGHT NOW. So yes many people know brook trout are native we should help them but there are sadly a lot of people out there who think working on water quality, removing all culverts, and putting 50,000 hatchery AIS into a watershed IS going to save brook trout. Thats what has led to the current dumpster fire that is brook trout management in PA.

I guess the pill that we all have to swallow as anglers is PA sold 1.2 million fishing licenses in 1990. This year we will be lucky to sell 750,000. We say no matter what these streams ate here to drip milk in honey in our mouths but the truth is we are shrinking in influence and number….not slowly. Being in a mass extinction crisis the number of people in the public learning about this stuff is increasing. As the public learns lantern flies are not the only invasive species there will be a point where the “no body cares” lands on the otherside of the fence.

No matter our hopes and wishes thats the story the numbers in the license sales and PFBC’s tax payer funded bailouts tell.

 

[BrookieChaser]

*cough Fishsticks *cough