conservation
biodiversity
Microevolution can guide conservation efforts Written by Heidi Schmelzer
The mangrove rivulus fish is native to mangrove forests in Florida, the
Caribbean, and Central America. Most individuals in this species are self-fertilizing hermaphrodites, allowing them to reproduce on their own. Because of this quality, and their tolerance to a wide range of environmental conditions, rivulus is an important species in researching genetics, ecology, and evolution. One question that studying rivulus helps answer is how species adjust in harshly changing environmental conditions. Mangrove forests in which this fish lives are located in saltwater or brackish water in coastal intertidal zones. The forests experience changing tide levels as well as have general susceptibility to changing environmental conditions such as salinity, temperature, and precipitation. Mangrove forests are heavily impacted by climate change and are a major focus for conservation efforts. As the rivulus is mostly composed of hermaphrodites and after many generation of self-fertilization, offspring are nearly genetically identical to their parents. This fish makes the perfect system to study how changing environmental conditions in mangrove forests affect individual traits within species that live in this habitat. Anthony Snead, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alabama studies the mangrove rivulus fish in the Early Lab in the Biological Sciences Department. He uses rivulus to study both basic research in microevolution and apply it to broader conservation strategies in the face of climate change.
Right: Two hermaphroditic mangrove rivulus fish. © Scott Taylor. All right reserved.
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