The SHOAL is the global ecosystem of partners and collaborators who work together to safeguard the health of Earth's freshwater habitats and conserve the most threatened freshwater species. As with a shoal of fish, the strength of the SHOAL lies with the number of partners all working together.
Blueprint for Conservation Action for 1,000 Freshwater Fishes
SHOAL's flagship initiative sets out a plan for how significant collaborative conservation effort can lift freshwater fishes and potentially thousands of other neglected freshwater species to a new elevated platform of conservation attention and greatly enhance freshwater conservation efforts globally.
Nathaniel Ng has joined the SHOAL team as the Southeast Asia Programme Coordinator alongside SHOAL partners IUCN SSC ASAP. He is a conservation biologist by training, with research background in population and conservation genomics and, in the years since his doctorate, has focused his efforts on the protection of life under the water’s surface, taking on aquatic-focused roles in conservation and research management in Mandai Nature, SEA Aquarium, and Mandai Wildlife Reserves, while freelancing in environmental consultation.
What’s your background?
Nathaniel: I am a conservation biologist with research specialisation in phylogenomics and population genomics and molecular ecology. I am fortunate to have enjoyed a diverse and multidisciplinary academic background, from sexual selection in insects, to Masters work in environmental science and management, on to PhD work focused on the patterns and mechanisms driving avian diversification across islands. Since completing my postgraduate degrees, I have turned my attention to freshwater fish conservation, accruing experience in conservation management and planning in the contexts of both NGOs (Mandai Nature) and zoos and aquaria (SEA Aquarium, Mandai Wildlife Group).
Where do you live?
Nathaniel: I presently live in Singapore.
What most excites you about working with SHOAL?
Nathaniel: Having worked on SHOAL/ASAP’s Strategic Framework to accelerate urgent action for Southeast Asia’s Critically Endangered freshwater fish in the past, what excites me the most is the opportunity to personally witness and help drive the protection of these oft-ignored but critical species. I am also enthusiastic about exploring the potential of roping in the expertise and interests of home hobbyists and zoos and aquaria, which could provide targeted and significant contributions to the protection of freshwater fishes.
What will your role on the team be?
Nathaniel: As the Southeast Asia Programme Coordinator, I will be managing and coordinating SHOAL’s efforts in Southeast Asia, working closely with a wide range of conservation partners (governments, scientists, communities, NGOs) with a focus on Critically Endangered species.
Gunung Halimun, Java
What do you find most interesting about freshwater species conservation?
Nathaniel: What makes freshwater species conservation challenging is also what makes it interesting: ever-growing human usage and extraction coupled with the fragility of freshwater ecosystems means that much innovation and persistence will be required to drive meaningful change. No two conservation challenges are ever going to be the same – which makes for a professional journey that is ever changing and never boring!
Do you have a favourite fish?
Nathaniel: This is too difficult of a question to answer! If I was forced to choose – maybe Parosphromenus tweediei. There’s just something about those stripes.
Nathaniel, welcome to the team!
Parosphromenus tweediei
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
October 11th 2024
Interview, SHOAL, Stories
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
Chouly: I am an interdisciplinary conservation scientist with expertise in freshwater fish ecology, community-based conservation, and capacity development. I have worked extensively in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake and the Lower Mekong River Basin, conducting research and leading conservation efforts. Throughout my career, I have held roles at the School for Field Studies-Cambodia programme, WWF-US, and BirdLife International, where I taught and researched freshwater fish ecology and conservation, managing grants, and developing local capacity.
Where do you live?
Chouly: I currently live in Virginia, United States of America, though I am originally from Cambodia.
What drew you to working with SHOAL?
Chouly: I was drawn to working with SHOAL because of its strong focus on conserving globally threatened freshwater fish species, a critical yet overlooked taxon. This role perfectly aligns with my passion and mission to make an impact on freshwater fish species and their ecosystems at the global level.
What excites you about freshwater species conservation?
Chouly: Growing up in Cambodia, where fish and freshwater ecosystems are integral to our lives and culture, I experienced firsthand the vital role of the rich diversity of fish species and their ecosystems, like the Tonle Sap Lake and Mekong River. Unfortunately, I also witnessed these fish and these systems’ increasing threats that often go unnoticed and lack the urgent attention they deserve. Seeing the incredible biodiversity and the growing threats facing them has motivated me to advocate for the conservation of freshwater species and their habitats.
What are you most looking forward to with this role?
Chouly: I am most looking forward to collaborating with communities, scientists, governments, NGOs, and private corporations to co-create long-term solutions for the recovery of the many globally threatened freshwater fish species and their ecosystems.
Do you have a favourite fish?
Chouly: It’s hard to choose, but I have a special connection to Schistura diminuta, the loach species I discovered during my Ph.D. research in Northeast Cambodia. It reminds me of how many species have yet to be discovered, yet they could become extinct before we get to know them if we do not work together to bring about conservation actions for freshwater fish species.
Chouly, a warm welcome to the team!
Chouly at work on Tonlé Sap.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
September 24th 2024
Interview, SHOAL, Stories
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
Interview with Michael Köck – European tour of zoos, aquaria and museums
“I thought I should introduce myself and Plan G to potential new partners in this exciting conservation plan, which has the potential to raise the bar for other projects and set new standards in freshwater conservation.”
Michael Köck
Michael and team in the field collecting goodeids in Mexico.[/caption]
Over the coming weeks Michael Köck, Chair of Plan G: the initiative to save the highly threatened Goodeinae family of Splitfins in Mexico, will travel around zoos, public aquaria and museums across Europe in a bid to engage stakeholders in an exciting and ambitious conservation plan. His travels will take him through Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom and it is hoped the trip will inspire relevant organisations and generate vital funding to save these species from extinction.
We caught up with Michael to learn more.
Could you say a bit about your background – introduce yourself a little?
Michael: I am a 56-year-old Austrian biologist who worked as a curator in a public aquarium in Vienna for 18 years. Last year I gave up this well-paid job and started working in freshwater fish conservation in Mexico, as the Chair of a 10-year conservation plan for an endemic Mexican fish group called Splitfins (subfamily Goodeinae, family Goodeidae). If you ask me why I gave up my job to work in Mexico, I will answer because I have seen what the people in this country are capable of achieving. I was impressed by the success they were able to reach with limited resources and I wanted to be part of this movement. I have faith in this community: Mexicans are incredible when they want to arrive at something and the people I work with are passionate about succeeding in conservation. I’m here to help them where I can and to learn from them whenever I can.
What is the purpose of this European tour?
Michael: The overall aim of this European zoo tour is to encourage zoos and public aquaria to become more involved in the conservation of Mexican Goodeid fish and to create something like a Goodeid Conservation Alliance. This unique group of fish is one of the most endangered in the world: 90% of the described species are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN and are therefore already in the focus of conservation efforts by many zoos and organisations. However, we want to unite all these efforts under one umbrella, and as the projects in our Plan G portfolio follow the one plan approach, meaning they include both ex situ and in situ work and involve local communities, they are certainly of interest to many zoos and public aquaria.
What are some of the key places you’ll visit?
Michael:Certainly the big zoos in Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Munich are important places, as well as Basel and Zurich, but there are others I’m looking forward to, such as Budapest and the museum in Malmö, which already play an important role in the conservation of Goodeids, or the zoo in Pilsen with a house for endangered fish. Honestly, every place I visit will be a highlight on my tour and I’m looking forward to each and every one of them.
Michael and colleagues
Why did you choose these places in particular?
Michael:I have selected zoos and public aquaria that are already contributing to the conservation of the Goodeids or Mexican freshwater fish and that I will be able to reach on my tour. There are public institutions that I have known for many years and where people I call friends work, and there are others where I only know the key people virtually, and finally there are zoos that claim to be strongly committed to conservation but have not worked with fish before. These are the most exciting ones as you never know if they are also interested in freshwater fish, but as freshwater habitats are the most threatened in the world, some zoos have broadened their focus and are open to dialogue. All in all, a mixture of good old friends and hopefully new contacts.
It’s a lot of travelling! And a lot of visiting zoos, aquaria and museums. Have you done anything like this before?
Michael: No, this is something I’ve never done before. That’s what came to mind when we launched Plan G, and with it my role of chair and ambassador. So I thought I should introduce myself and Plan G to potential new partners in this exciting conservation plan, which has the potential to raise the bar for other projects and set new standards in freshwater conservation. Every penny and cent counts for these fish, and every metre on this journey is worth it. In the end, I should have visited more than 30 zoos and public aquaria in 48 days and hopefully gained more members for the Goodeid Conservation Alliance.
What can zoos, aquaria and museums offer as key allies in conservation?
Michael:Zoos, aquaria and museums reach a large group of people. Zoo visitors, who don’t really think of fish when they think of endangered animals, are awakened and interested, and lectures in museums could reach a whole new audience. By working together with them, the circle of people we can reach with our conservation efforts expands enormously. Temporary actions in zoos to create support or raise money, or the conservation euro collected by several German zoos, contribute directly to conservation and the network between zoos strengthens such an alliance and makes it very stable. As it stands, however, it is easier to approach zoos and public aquaria than museums, although the latter probably need a slightly different approach.
Michael and colleague in in the field.
Finally, what are your hopes and expectations with this tour?
Michael:It would be presumptuous to have any expectations for this tour. The budget for this year has already been spent or committed, so I’m not thinking about immediate support. In the long term, I hope that I can convince many of the places I visit how important their contribution is. Protecting freshwater fish is not just about reintroducing a species, but also about listening to the local people, trying to understand their problems, aspirations and hopes, and it involves trying to get them on board and working with them to solve their problems.
This also includes environmental education and social work. A healthy, clean lake is something that everyone wants, but that the people who live on it and from it often cannot afford. But with smart and clever ideas and the will of multiple stakeholders, we could build something like a constructed wetland that helps clean the lake’s wastewater, and if you plant it with flowers that a women’s startup can sell at markets, you are not only cleaning a lake, but you are also helping to increase the community’s wealth and promote gender equality. Conservation work starts with the people and ends with them. I hope that many of the places I visit in Europe recognise this and help us find a balance between freshwater habitat conservation and people’s needs that can serve as a model for the rest of the world.
The zoos, aquaria and museums Michael will be visiting:
Monday 02 September: Malmö Museum.
Tuesday 03 September: Den Blå Planet Aquarium.
Wednesday 04 September: Rostock Zoo.
Thursday 05 September: Schwerin Zoo.
Friday 06 September: Aquarium Berlin (morning), Tierpark Berlin (afternoon).
Saturday 07 September: 1000 Arten-Projekt and Berlin Group of Livebearer breeders.
“Many areas that could only be reached after days in a boat or in a helicopter 20 years ago and now crossed by highways.”
Maurice Kottelat has discovered and described hundreds of freshwater species: 471 species descriptions, to be precise, and an unknown number of discoveries, and has published exactly 400 papers and books in a remarkable career that spans five decades.
Although he has spent the majority of his career focusing on species in Southeast Asia, he literally wrote the handbook, alongside Dr. Jörg Freyhof, on European freshwater fishes and, with Dr. Tan Heok Hui, discovered the world’s smallest fish, Paedocypris progenetica.
What is it about discovering and describing species that particularly appeals to you?
MAURICE: In most cases the discovery is a by-product of surveys or other work for clients; but in these cases, I usually accept the job only if it allows travel to interesting places (i.e. where I have not been before, preferably where no other ichthyologist has been, and where I am allowed to take samples to examine and study). When it comes to non-commercial activities, I am interested in places I have not been and where I expect there will be novelties.
Discovering new species is not my primary aim; it is a nice by-product demonstrating that the selection of the area was correct, or that the money was well spent. My primary interest is faunistic and inventories, landscapes. But it is fair to say that the output is often calculated as a number of species, especially new species.
To be frank, describing is boring and repetitive. It was interesting at the beginning, to show what was being discovered. But now it is linked with administrative burden (submissions, reviews, revisions, etc. Now I prefer writing books or large papers or describing species in bulk). Obviously, there is a fair amount of ego!
Also, I write because I sort of feel an obligation to make information public, for others to use for conservation, to leave a record of what existed before the construction of dams and highways, before an influx of tourists etc. I think this is a kind of moral duty. It makes me angry to read colleagues writing about a pristine lake when their pictures show something totally different from what I saw when I visited the same lake years ago.
Can you talk through the process of going out into the field to search for fish?
MAURICE: If you mean how to find new species, it is all about the instinct to select places and habitats that have not been sampled before – rapids, waterfalls, deep swamps, anything weird that people would usually avoid – and look for small fish. In fact, you can look just about anywhere there is water, including puddles and saturated soils.
How many times have you been to the field recently?
MAURICE: In the past three years, thanks to COVID, not once. But I will hopefully go back to Laos in March. Before COVID it was about two to three times per year.
What was a particularly memorable species discovery?
MAURICE: A trip to Laos in 1999 yielded about two new species per day for a month and a paper describing 62 new species in one shot.
At that time, the published information on the fishes of Laos was more or less restricted to the Mekong. In 1999, an environment department at the World Bank (through Tony Whitten) had a programme to translate field guides from English, French, German etc into the local languages. I was asked if I could compile these reports into a single volume to be translated into Lao. I objected because there were too many blanks on the map (areas where I had not sampled were, at that time, areas where few or no ichthyologist had ever been). I negotiated to write the book only if there was funding to fill the main gaps.
I spent one month fishing in selected river basins and ‘creamed’ the easily accessed areas. Because of the publication deadline and the need to have valid names for the species, I had to rush a paper diagnosing as many of them as possible, which ended in a paper describing 62 new species and one new genus.
The book came out in 2001 and the Lao version was distributed for free to fisheries and conservation agencies, NGOs, high schools and other places.
Before I started work on fishes of Laos, about 210 species had been recorded in the country, all in the Mekong. The 2001 book includes 480. The next edition, to be published this or next year, includes 570 named species, with about another 50 unnamed species I’ll try to add.
What sorts of places are likely to have undiscovered species living in them?
MAURICE: Habitats: headwaters, rapids, wet soil, caves, swamp forests, deep water, in fact everywhere where there is water.
Areas: Southeast Asia, Myanmar, northeast India, central Borneo, southwest Asia. New species are still being discovered in southern Europe!
Are there any places you’d particularly like to target?
MAURICE: There are still places in Laos where I have not been. I still have an interest in Borneo but local conditions (especially red tape) make it a pain. I have been to Mongolia and, despite depauperate fauna, I would like to visit again. But with age, I prefer to focus on what I know best.
You’re potentially the only person in the world who has built a career flying round the world getting paid to discover and describe freshwater fish species. What was your route into that?
MAURICE: Not around the world, Asia and southern Europe are enough.
I worked in a research institution and became unhappy with several conditions and resigned.
I was quickly asked to do surveys, for conservation agencies and NGOs, then for EIAs of hydropower, mining, forestry projects. I was not paid to discover new fish species, but I took time to do real surveys and brought proof of what I reported, which leads to discoveries.
The scientific surveys were mostly without salary, though they did pay for field expenses.
When I was much younger, it was not my ambition to describe fish but to travel and see fish in their habitat.
What sorts of changes have you seen to freshwater habitats and species throughout your career?
MAURICE: Many areas that could only be reached after days in a boat or in a helicopter 20 years ago and now crossed by highways. Some habitats have been greatly reduced, e.g. peat swamps, or have disappeared.
Some species have become very rare and fish densities have become very low because of overfishing. Introduced species are more and more present. Even in protected areas, aquatic habitats are not given attention, and fish are seen as a resource or as food for waterbirds, not as species in themselves. A kilogram of introduced tilapia has more value than a kilogram of 20 small endemic species.
SHOAL released their annual report New Species 2022 on World Wildlife Day, Friday 3rd March 2023. The report details the 201 species of freshwater fish identified in 2022.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
April 7th 2023
Feature, Interview, New Species
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
“We know that Sulawesi is a hotspot for freshwater biodiversity, and I think we have to explore it more.”
Abdul Gani is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Fisheries, University of Muhammadiyah Luwuk, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, and an advocate for Sulawesi’s diverse and abundant endemic freshwater species. He discovered and described the Kalimpa’a ricefish highlighted in New Species 2022.
What do you enjoy about discovering and describing species?
ABDUL: One of my passions is exploring the world around me, especially because I know that the island of Sulawesi is included in the Wallacea designation, and is a biodiversity hotspot, especially freshwater ichthyofauna. There are many places on the island with incredible diversity of ichthyofauna, and I love to explore the island and learn about the creatures there. Describing species is a good challenge that adds to the exploration.
In 2020, my team and I discovered a new endemic species from the Adrianichthyidae family in Lake Kalimpa’a, Lore Lindu National Park, which we described in 2022 and named Oryzias kalimpaaensis1.
In my opinion, there are still many freshwater fish species that can be obtained and described as new species because Indonesia has a high level of diversity and the exploration of freshwater fish in Indonesia is still low. This can be an opportunity to find new freshwater fish species.
What has been a particularly memorable species discovery for you?
ABDUL: The most memorable species discovery for me was when I discovered the new species Oryzias kalimpaaensis in Lake Kalimpa’a, Lore Lindu National Park in 2020 and published in 2022.
Also, in 2017 my team ERA Indonesia and I found a species that had not been seen for a long time: Oryzias bonneorum in Lake Lindu. This species was described by Parenti in 2008, based on specimens preserved since 1939. But we have not published the paper about that yet.
My plan is for Oryzias bonneorum and Oryzias kalimpaaensis to become my next research project for the dissertation material in my Doctoral programme. ERA Indonesia is a community of young people who focus on preserving biodiversity, especially endemic flora and fauna.
Could you describe the process of discovering Oryzias kalimpaaensis?
ABDUL: It started through my hobby of adventuring in the wild. When I was in high school, I joined a community of nature lovers, which led me onto discovering and describing new species.
From 2020 until now, my team ERA Indonesia and I have been exploring the river and lake in the Lore Lindu National Park along with Fish Quarantine Station Quality Control and Safety of Fishery Products (SKIPM) Palu, Indonesia, with the purpose of collecting data about invasive species and finding new species.
During one of these explorations, we found this new fish from the Oryzias genus that had not been identified before. In the next exploration, we took measurements of the water quality and prepared several specimens for morphological and molecular identification. Based on the results of morphological and molecular identification, we found this was a new species from the Adrianichthyidae family and Oryzias genus. We named it Oryzias kalimpaaensis after the name of the place where the fish was found, Lake Kalimpa’a.
Why do you think Oryzias kalimpaaensis was not discovered before?
ABDUL: Freshwater fish exploration hadn’t then been carried out there, so the existence of the species wasn’t known.
What notable things can you tell us about the species?
ABDUL: The discovery of Oryzias kalimpaaensis is a remarkable achievement for me personally and also for my friends who are involved in the exploration and writing up of the publication. The discovery gives new information about the diversity of Sulawesi’s endemic species, especially in Central Sulawesi. Central Sulawesi’s freshwater endemics are now 16, whereas in 2019 it was 15.
We know that Sulawesi is a hotspot for freshwater biodiversity, and I think we have to explore it more. With that in mind, I think the discovery of Oryzias kalimpaaensis could be the start of other endemic species being discovered in the area.
I hope that the diversity and populations of freshwater endemics in Sulawesi sustains and thrives: let’s protect and preserve Sulawesi’s endemic freshwater!
SHOAL released their annual report New Species 2022 on World Wildlife Day, Friday 3rd March 2023. The report details the 201 species of freshwater fish identified in 2022.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
March 31st 2023
Feature, Interview, New Species
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
“What I most enjoy is getting a deeper appreciation for how evolution has proceeded. In order to really understand how things are evolving, you need to know who’s there, how many there are, you need to know what they’re doing.”
Christine Thacker is the Curator Emeritus of Ichthyology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and Research Associate, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Her research concerns the evolution, systematics, and biogeography of gobies and cardinalfishes. She established the evolutionary relationships of this diverse radiation, yielding new family and lineage level classifications for the group1.
In 2022, she described six species of goby, two of which were from New Zealand, and four from Australia, which are highlighted in New Species 2022.
SHOAL: What do you love so much about gobies?
CHRISTINE: Gobies are so wonderful! They are so important in ecosystems, and are found around the world in all kinds of different habitats and it’s just fascinating because they exhibit such a wide range of evolutionary strategies. The new genomics tools that are coming out are opening up a whole new frontier.
SHOAL: What kind of new frontier are genomics tools opening up?
CHRISTINE: The thing about gobies is that they are in many cases morphologically sort of uniform – not entirely, obviously, but there’s not the range of variation that’s seen in the tunas or the flatfishes or things that are larger and much easier to work with in terms of their morphological data, i.e. their appearance. Gobies are small and yet they have so many important differences in terms of how they adapt to their environment and how they evolve, the way they speciate, that it’s been incredibly useful to use molecular tools to get at what’s going on. A lot of the time it can’t be seen just from the external appearance.
SHOAL: Taxonomy and describing species is very technical. What exactly is the process?
CHRISTINE: The first thing is that something is found, captured and examined and people think it is unusual and wonder, ‘Is this a new species?’. From that initial curiosity, you look at it very carefully, the morphology, the external appearance, the scales, the fin rays, the colour, the way the tail is shaped, the mouth, the teeth maybe and any ecological information you may have – where does it live, what does it eat, how does it reproduce – and then compare it to other species that are related to it to try and determine if this is really new.
And if it’s really different, either in appearance or behaviour or genetics, then the next step is to determine if the differences are really consistent. So, for instance you could look at some fish and say, ‘These red ones are different from these green ones,’ but if you find out that the red ones are sometimes half green or the green ones are sometimes a bit reddish, maybe that’s an indication that the red population is not actually a distinct species.
Once you think it’s new, the next step is to determine if there’s a name already assigned. And this is the paperwork part, the library research. You reach out to your colleagues, you look at field guides, at whether this has been treated by somebody else, as it’s entirely possible that somebody else knows this and named it years ago or in some other context.
You then write a paper that includes what it looks like, how it can be distinguished from its relatives, what the name is going to be, where the name comes from, what it means, and then crucially you want to provide as much information about this species as you can so that others can identify it.
It’s customary in a description to include photographs, drawings, tables, and any other information that will aid others in identifying it.
You also crucially have to deposit a type specimen: choose an individual that is representative of a species, that is preserved well, and then deposit it in a museum so that it is publicly available. There are rules about making type species available by others and making the paper published in an accessible form – other people need to be able to access it and use it.
SHOAL: What do you most enjoy about discovering and describing new species?
CHRISTINE: I think what I most enjoy about it is getting a deeper appreciation for how evolution has proceeded. In order to really understand how things are evolving, what they are doing, you need to know who’s there, how many there are, you need to know what they’re doing. That’s sort of the foundation for any further ecological evolutionary behavioural studies.
SHOAL: From the species that you described last year, is there one that is a standout to you?
CHRISTINE: I would say the bald carp gudgeon (Hypseleotris gymnocephala) is the most interesting. It has a very restricted parental distribution, and we didn’t think that we were going to find it. Peter Unmack found it in a little stream in New South Wales, Australia and it is genetically a beautiful little fish. They don’t have any scales on their heads, have tiny little faces and they have established a hybrid lineage that is incredibly widespread. They outcompete their parents. The question is, what is it about those hybrids that allow them to do better than their parents? They must have some incredible hybrid vigour. ‘Gymnocephala’ means ‘naked head’, as it doesn’t have scales on its head like most of the other taxa.
SHOAL: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
CHRISTINE: I would say the bald carp gudgeon (Hypseleotris gymnocephala) is the most interesting. It has a very restricted parental distribution, and we didn’t think that we were going to find it. Peter Unmack found it in a little stream in New South Wales, Australia and it is genetically a beautiful little fish. They don’t have any scales on their heads, have tiny little faces and they have established a hybrid lineage that is incredibly widespread. They outcompete their parents. The question is, what is it about those hybrids that allow them to do better than their parents? They must have some incredible hybrid vigour. ‘Gymnocephala’ means ‘naked head’, as it doesn’t have scales on its head like most of the other taxa.
SHOAL released their annual report New Species 2022 on World Wildlife Day, Friday 3rd March 2023. The report details the 201 species of freshwater fish identified in 2022.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
March 24th 2023
Feature, Interview, New Species
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
“Discovering and describing new species completes our knowledge about the diversity of life on Earth.”
Roberto Esser dos Reis, is a Brazilian ichthyologist, professor and Curator of Fishes at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. With his students and collaborators, he has described 151 new taxa (including 139 new species), 17 new genera, and one new subfamily of fish.
In 2022 alone, he described eight species and one genus of freshwater fish, which are highlighted in New Species 2022. He also discovered a further six freshwater fish species that will likely be described over the coming years.
What do you most enjoy about discovering and describing species?
ROBERTO: What moves me is revealing undetected biodiversity and studying their phylogenetic relationships. Discovering and describing new species completes our knowledge about the diversity of life on Earth and allows for adequate conservation planning. Revealing their phylogenetic relationships – the part I like the most – uncovers the diversification of the group and brings to light explanations on evolution, biogeography and phylogeography of organisms.
Can you talk about the process of describing a species?
ROBERTO: This is not a simple process. It usually takes many years of detailed study of a museum or other biodiversity collection, careful fieldwork, and lots of reading of specialised literature.
Once you have the expertise, you must compare newly collected specimens (or those residing in a collection) with type-specimens (those previously used to describe species) and published descriptions. Then you will be able to find the subtle differences that can tell independent evolutionary lineages (i.e. species) apart.
In the last 20 or so years, the possibility of using DNA segments to help this process has improved our ability to detect such lineages and demonstrate they are evolving independently. This is the process of discovering undescribed diversity. Describing and publishing is a much simpler process that also requires some expertise and training. I am proud of having trained many grad students in both parts of the process.
Can you talk through a particularly memorable species discovery?
ROBERTO: Back in 2003 I was conducting fieldwork in the Ucayali River in Peru, and I knew from European aquarium magazines of a new species of Otocinclus (a small suckermouth catfish) from that region. I spent around two weeks looking for this and other fishes and could not find it. At the end of the expedition, I was with my team at the harbor in Jenaro Herrera to take the boat back to Iquitos, and suddenly a local fish collector for the aquarium trade arrived at the harbor with dozens of flat, wooden trays coated with plastic, obviously carrying ornamental fishes to sell to the aquarium fish exporters in Iquitos. I asked permission and started peeking at each tray and eventually found one full of the new Otocinclus I was looking for! They were collected in a nearby creek and lake which I was not aware of! I then purchased some 30 specimens from the fisher, preserved them during the boat trip, and used those specimens to describe Otocinclus Cocama – a very beautiful fish!
Are there any characteristics of a place that make it more likely to have undescribed or undiscovered species living there?
ROBERTO: Well, this is a tricky question. Obviously, I would expect unexplored areas (like the eastern Amazon, or the southern Orinoco basin) to have more unknown species. This is generally true. However, I can show you several papers, some by myself, describing new species from areas heavily sampled during the last 200 years!
At this very moment I am conducting a study describing five new species of another group of suckermouth catfish from the upper Uruguay River in south Brazil, an area that my team have collected heavily for about 30 years. Most of the fishes were already pickled and sitting on a shelf in our own museum, but are so far undetected as undescribed. It’s a matter of being able to detect them.
Can you estimate how many species may yet be discovered and described in South America, and the world?
ROBERTO: Fish is a big group with about 36,400 species today. Approximately half are freshwater and half are marine. In the last 20 years or so, an average of 104 new species are described for the Neotropical region alone. In 2016 I published with colleagues an article showing that we had in South America some 5,160 freshwater fish species, and we estimated a final diversity between 8,000 and 9,000 species.
Sturisoma reisi, one of the notable species in this report, was named after you. Are there other species named after you?
ROBERTO: Yes! A former PhD student described Sturisoma reisi in my honor. As well as that, there is Ancistrus reisi, Phalloceros reisi, Rineloricaria reisi, Scleromystax reisi, and Brachychalcinus reisi. Sturisoma reisi is a very beautiful fish, from the Guaporé River, Madeira River basin, and collected near Costa Marques in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. It’s a really cool fish that lives, as most other suckermouth catfishes, in the bottom of swift creeks and rivers. This particular species can be found more commonly on logs and tree branches fallen into the water.
SHOAL released their annual report New Species 2022 on World Wildlife Day, Friday 3rd March 2023. The report details the 201 species of freshwater fish identified in 2022.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
March 10th 2023
Feature, Interview, New Species
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
Cycling for sturgeon (Interview with Matt Spencer)
“Rather than the trip of a lifetime, it was a lifetime in a trip.”
By Eleanor Grice
Matt Spencer hatched a plan in lockdown…
…to leave his job as the UK Fisheries Outreach Officer at the Marine Stewardship Council and cycle 11,000km across Europe and Central Asia. Why? To raise vital awareness of sturgeon declines.
Critical in maintaining ecosystem structures and central to many of the cultures along the rivers they inhabit, sturgeon numbers have plummeted in the last century due to a combination of river pollution, loss of habitat and poaching.
MATT: They’re the most endangered group of species on the planet, we have just 26 species left and they’re all threatened, Endangered or Critically Endangered.
The last time we checked in with Matt, he was still on the road. So now that the adventure is over, how is he feeling? Certainly glad to be reunited with his home comforts, though it seems there has been an adjustment period.
MATT: When I first came to the UK I had to sleep on the floor because the bed was just too soft for me, I was waking up in the night with my joints aching.
SHOAL: Oh my god.
MATT: I’ve slowly worked my way up to the bed.
Matt arrived back in the UK in October – “but I do miss it”.
MATT: The best part was I’d unzip the tent in the morning and get a cool breeze of uncertainty. I didn’t know what would be happening, who I’d be meeting, what I’d be seeing.
…via extreme terrain from deserts to mountain passes, was conceived during the pandemic. Like everybody else, Matt was stuck at home and grew extremely familiar with his surroundings. His “tiny London flat” had a world map on the wall, that across the weeks he began to obsess over.
MATT: I’ve always had a fascination with sturgeon and I could just track the rivers where they were still present. The Garonne, the Po, the Danube. I then started looking at what’s in between the rivers. I was like well I’ve got to cross the channel, then there’s the Alps, then you’ve got the Black Sea. It was quite cool no-one had ever done this before. There’s always that weird tinge of pride when you’re first to do something.
SHOAL: Were you nervous?
MATT: It’s only when you tell work you’re leaving that you’re at a point of no return. I wasn’t nervous about quitting; I was actually excited to tell them the news because I knew in my heart of hearts this was shattering the glass. The only time I was really nervous about the trip was the day before I left because I hadn’t done a lot of training. Everyone at my leaving drinks was like Matt we didn’t know you liked cycling you’ve never spoken about it before. When I told them I didn’t they went from laughter to [being] quite concerned. It kicked in that I was leaving behind my life and everything that I knew. It was a thrill.
…in the Marine Stewardship Council, Matt has engaged with a lot of fish species but for him the sturgeon is special. Before this recent adventure, Matt joined a project in Georgia with Fauna and Flora International looking at ways to restore populations of sturgeon in the Rioni River. Six species of sturgeon used to breed there, but due to poaching, environmental degradation, and dams those numbers have fallen significantly. It was on that project Matt had the “moment when I realised what I want to do for the rest of my life”.
As he excitedly talks about how his latest journey gave him the chance to see the different communities and how they approached conservation of the fish, it’s clear Matt’s passion for sturgeon is burning as brightly as ever.
MATT: I have a tattoo now.
SHOAL: Wow – was it planned or spontaneous?
MATT: It was something I wanted to do. I got it on my last day in Tashkent. No regrets. They did a fantastic job, it’s on my leg.
SHOAL: A sensible move to get a leg tattoo on the final day and not half way through, when you’re cycling.
…he mentioned a phrase that stuck with us – “the madness that inspired and transpired”.
MATT: Well, the madness that inspired. Everyone who I told about my plan to cycle halfway across the world for fish was just like, that is complete lunacy. Fair enough. And all the madness that transpired. Drinking with policemen until the early hours. Hearing people walk past my tent at 2am in a forest in Romania. A lot of near-misses: drivers, dogs, landslides…
SHOAL: Speaking of – I imagine there were bumps in the road, literal or otherwise. What unexpected moments did you navigate?
MATT: Bad moments are a bit like thunderstorms. They’re normally fleeting but pretty grim. I had a week from hell in Hungary. It was about two months into the trip and loads of my gear started failing on me, plus basically six days and nights of rain. That was tough. I got dysentery in Uzbekistan, but I was meeting a Russian sturgeon scientist so I had to keep going. If I missed him it would be a complete mess. It led to some quite funny moments though, where I had to make an emergency pitstop at the side of the road and people in minivans were just driving past. Gives you all you need to know about that moment in my life.
SHOAL: It’s one of those things though that a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now will just be an interesting thing about Matt.
MATT: Yeah, about four days later I was laughing. At the time I was like “God my life absolutely sucks right now,” but then when you’re on the recovery stretch you can laugh at the misfortune.
The incredible journey spanned not just countries, but continents…
…with Matt’s cycle route based on specific rivers known for their sturgeon populations. From the Garonne in France across the Alps, then following the River Po across Italy. Matt then followed the Danube for several hundred miles before crossing the Black Sea and arriving in the Rioni basin. Next he traversed Georgia and Armenia before having to fly to Aktau on the coast of Kazakhstan, as Azerbaijan was still sealed due to covid. From here it took nine days crossing a desert into Uzbekistan and a jaunt over the Fann mountians in Tajikistan before finally arriving in the Syr Darya in the Fergana Valley.
MATT: Armenia was amazing. To do Georgia and then Armenia it was like gold followed by platinum. I spent a lot of time in southern Georgia near a place called Vardzia. To get there I had to cross the Zekari pass which separated lush verdant mountains on one side into arid Steppe conditions within two hours of cycling. There was barely anyone around, a really ancient part of the world. That was a real highlight.
SHOAL: I’ve been to Georgia and I am personally obsessed with the food there.
MATT: Yes! I had one guy tell me “don’t go to Georgia the cuisine is awful” and I was like…khinkali? Are you mad!
SHOAL: That’s a crazy thing to say, I mean khatchapuri? I’m addicted.
MATT: Romania’s epic, it’s so wild. People think for wilderness you have to go to Alaska or Patagonia, there are parts of Romania which are genuinely still wild. We went down through Uzbekistan, through Tajikistan and then up back into the Fergana Valley. That was mind-blowing. There were so many good spots. The food was wicked.
SHOAL: Were you picking up local recommendations or did you go in with plans for what you would do and eat?
MATT: A little bit of both. France and Italy I’d been to before and I had friends who are French and Italian so I just asked them (a) do you have any family I can stay with for free and (b) any recommendations? In France a slight detour I made was for the Tarne Gorge. It’s some of the best cycling I did the whole trip. Stunning. The weather was awful which meant everyone else was off the road. Just me and some other guy barrelling through headwinds and rain for three days.
SHOAL: It’s nice to have the freedom to be able to incorporate that into the trip.
MATT: Yeah, and credit where credit’s due – Google Maps is incredible. As soon as I’d outlined the route I’d look for the rough country roads. The idea was to double the distance and half the traffic, rather than double the traffic and half the distance. You plan a rough route, but other than that you just follow your nose. Sometimes I just get a really good feeling about a path and I’ve got six months to do it, so I’ve got a bit of time to play with. There would be times when I wouldn’t look at my phone, wouldn’t look at a map, I’d just follow this path. So that was fun.
…(before any spontaneous tattoos were booked!) was to the Syr Darya to look for the shovelnose sturgeon, one of SHOAL’s 10 Lost Fishes. Matt met up with Russia and Central Asia sturgeon expert Alexey Cherniak. The duo set out to search the Fergana Valley, the area where the last recordings of the shovelnose sturgeon were taken.
MATT: It was wicked to go into these really remote, rural communities. We’d sit down, sometimes over food, sometimes informal chats by the road or by the river. The older generation fishermen said they hadn’t seen it for 60 years. Anyone under the age of 60 hadn’t even heard of it. So we can probably put a line through that area in terms of hosting the sturgeon.
Disappointed by the outcome of the search, Alexey and Matt are already talking about going further upstream into Kyrgyzstan as the next port of call. Fishermen in the area have anecdotally reported catching the sturgeon in the past 20 or 30 years.
MATT: I built up in my head that I was going to see it, which I probably shouldn’t have done, but when you’re cycling by yourself you don’t have much else to think about. You do feel a bit like you’ve let everyone down, but at the same time you sit back and realise the chances were vanishingly small.
SHOAL: Especially at the end of a trip like that, you must start to feel like this is the Hollywood final act moment.
MATT: There were so many close scrapes and near shaves that you think, no matter how vanishingly small the chance of finding a shovel nose we’ve been so lucky over the past few months you might get one final roll of the dice. But it wasn’t to be.
MATT: I guess for any future employers reading, my answer is no massive trips planned. I’ve definitely got the bug for central Asia, I’d love to go back there. Unfortunately reality is knocking so it’s feet under the table time. And then maybe disappear again.
SHOAL: Work until you have the resources to travel again. And repeat.
MATT: Exactly, life is there for the living right? It’s a great mentality to live with. And it doesn’t need to be for a higher cause, but in moments where I was properly down, knowing that I was cycling for a cause was a massive preserver of energy for me.
SHOAL: With that in mind, for anyone who comes across your journey – what can they do?
MATT: Unfortunately the donation link is now closed. However the cause is Fauna and Flora International so if you want to donate money please donate it to them or SHOAL, another group close to my heart.
Obviously it’s a tough time for everyone financially. If you can’t donate then try and volunteer, if you can’t volunteer then just take 10 minutes a day to walk around and appreciate how majestic wildlife can be. You don’t need to disappear to Alaska or whatever to do that. Just go to your garden, or to a local park.
Be in wonder of something as simple as a bee or a spider and think of ways you can help them out. Small things like that do make massive differences.
SHOAL: Absolutely. Thanks so much for chatting with us Matt. What an incredible journey.
MATT: Best thing I ever did, riskiest thing I’ve ever done – but it paid me back far more than it cost me.
To follow Matt’s future adventures…
…make sure to follow him on social media, and check out his blog One Average Spoke to dive further into his incredible trip.
Matthew L. Miller is the director of science communications at The Nature Conservancy. He is also a passionate angler whose love of freshwater biodiversity calls him to question traditional approaches to fisheries management in the USA.
He has written extensively on using the phrases ‘rough fish’ or ‘trash fish’, both of which are used widely among anglers in North America. They mean the same as ‘coarse fish’ in the UK: fish that don’t make good eating and so aren’t considered game. The terms have problematic implications for non-game fish, as Matthew explained.
Can you talk through the use of the term ‘rough fish’ in fisheries management in the USA?
It stems from the idea of there being a hierarchy among fishes. It’s a European notion that held that coarse fishing was considered lower than game fishing. It has evolved over time, but there is still the distinction in many European waters between game fishing and coarse fishing. In the USA, that hierarchy has held, and fishing regulations in the USA distinguish between game fish and rough fish.
Often this translates to a complete lack of regulation for non-game fish. For instance, where I am in Idaho, you can take rough fish at any time of year, without limit, and you can spear them, snag them or shoot them with bows and arrows.
The regulations have not kept up with the science. We now know that some of these non-game species are long lived and slow to mature, but you can still kill them without limit.
How can this lack of regulation damage the wider ecosystem?
Bow fishing – fishing with a bow and arrow – used to be a niche hobby in the USA, but recently it has exploded in popularity. There are now specialised boats, specialised lighting, all this equipment, but very little research on the impact this is having on the ecosystem.
Game fish such as trout and bass have a lot of funding and research directed at them, but non-game fish have a real lack of both. There is anecdotal evidence of people noticing non-game fish such as bigmouth buffalo disappearing from certain waters, but there needs to be more studies. I co-authored a paper in the Fisheries journal that is calling for more research.
A blue sucker: non-game fish like this can broaden anglers’ horizons
Suckers can provide a new challenge for anglers.
In your recent Cool Green Science article, you said that fisheries should be ‘managed with science, not emotion’. Are fisheries usually regulated by emotion in the USA?
We have state fish and wildlife agencies that manage wildlife in the different states. In fact, a lot of the management of wildlife is at state level. Hunting and fishing have a democratic tradition in the USA, as there is unrestricted access and you don’t have to be a landowner.
Many of our wildlife species are well managed, but usually only if they are managed by hunters and anglers, as they have real interest in sound management of the species that they’re interested in.
There is pressure from anglers that is not based on science. They want lots of trout, so many lakes stock massive amounts of trout. We hope for there to be management based on science, but it is wishful thinking.
On the other hand, when anglers come together, they can be a powerful force for good. For instance, they have driven the reintroduction of lots of native trout species and subspecies.
Can you talk through some of the frustrating things you’ve seen from anglers with regards to non-game fish?
A viral video this summer showed two bowfishers counting off 1,000 gar they killed in an outing. This is nearly impossible to achieve over a weekend of hook and line angling.
And they dumped every dead fish back into the water.
The first time I tried fishing for suckers, somebody said: “Are you having any luck with the trout?”.
I said that I’m fishing for suckers.
He said that “They’re non-native and that ‘I should kill all I can”.
People often offer me unsolicited advice and are dumbfounded when I say I’m trying to catch suckers. But, as with anything, you need to recognise when it’s best for education, and when it’s best to not go down that rabbit hole: there are people who are receptive to the message, and people who are not.
Part of what I’m trying to do is shift the narrative where I can, which doesn’t mean shifting the minds of everyone. But the more people who value the non-game fish, the more hope we have.
Rarely does making somebody aware of an issue change it.
But in the USA there is a tremendous outdoor media, and there are voices in that media that have influence, so if they say an alligator gar is a trophy fish, people will listen.
When alligator gars were featured on Jeremy Wade’s River Monsters, suddenly people wanted to go out and catch and release them. That’s a change of value among anglers that was driven by a television show.
We have a long way to go, and as with most things, it has to be a combination of a change in attitudes and change in regulation, and both of these will feed each other.
What can anglers do to be a force for positive change?
They can really get to know their streams. I know anglers who know mayfly habits and the behaviour of trout really well, but don’t really know much about the other fish species. Knowing more about the biodiversity can make you a better angler, and it can also help you expand your angling horizons – catching a bigmouth buffalo can be a tremendously challenging endeavour, and that can really flip the narrative.
Matthew’s book ‘Fishing Through the Apocalypse’ is out now. It explores what the future holds for fish and the people who pursue them through a series of fishing stories about the reality of the sport in the 21st century.
Matthew is also the editor of Cool Green Science: the conservation science blog from The Nature Conservancy.
You can find him on Twitter at @eatguineapigs.
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
September 20th 2021
Angling, Feature, Fish, Interview
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One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
The Dumbéa River pipefish: a citizen science story
FOUND! The Dumbéa River pipefish: a citizen science success story
During the research for the initial Top 10 Most Wanted species, a 2020 recording of one of the species on iNaturalist forced us to reconsider one particular species. Turns out the Dumbéa River pipefish wasn’t a ‘lost fish’ after all!
To glean as much information as we could about the Top 10 Most Wanted species, we Googled each of the species. For the most part, there was barely any information about any of them – they have been seen so rarely, and often so long ago, that people just don’t know that much about them.
But for one of the original Top 10 species, there was some recent information. The Dumbéa River pipefish Microphis cruentus of New Caledonia had been recorded in the citizen science and naturalist social network iNaturalist in October 2020. And, sure enough, there were a couple of bright colour photos and a verification to prove the observation!
This made us sit up and take notice.
A species that a team of leading freshwater scientists had every reason to believe hadn’t been seen in well over a decade was right there on our screens, very much alive and not at all lost.
We got in touch with the man who observed the species – Damien Brouste, a passionate naturalist who lives in New Caledonia – and the man who verified the observation as a legitimate sighting – Valentin de Mazancourt, associate researcher at the French National Museum of Natural History.
Damien explained how he found the fish, with another New Caledonia resident, Nicolas Charpin: “We were looking for the pipefish at night, as during the day they hide in the vegetation bank. We were looking in a particular pool in the Ouenghi River and after maybe only five minutes we found some. I was really surprised to see the colours of the fish, as they are so bright. We didn’t find any more during the two hours of research following this find”.
“The Ouenghi River is a small river, around ten meters wide, that gently flows through pastoral land on the West Coast [of New Caledonia]. It is extremely clear, with around ten meters of visibility. The banks are two meters high, with lots of vegetation. The bottom is an alternation of rock and sand. There are a lot of shrimp in the river, even some good-sized ones. Juveniles may be a good food source for the microphis”.
Nicolas is an aquatic scientist who set up Vies d’Ô douce: ‘a non-profit association whose main objective is to promote the biodiversity of aquatic environments in New Caledonia’. According to Damien, Nicolas has spotted Microphis cruentus many times, and knows exactly where it can be found.
It’s incredibly exciting to learn that people are out there, spotting this species that was thought to be ‘lost’. This story has really highlighted how anybody can provide meaningful contributions to science.
On his experience using iNaturalist, Damien said: “iNaturalist is a fantastic platform to connect people. I’ve been in contact with many scientists because I take pictures of many things. I’ve had pictures published in a coral book and pictures published in a publication on pygmy grasshoppers. Those contacts gave me the opportunity to work on a scientific study of a New Caledonian snail for the French Museum”.
And Valentin was similarly effusive about his use of iNaturalist: “As an avid user of iNaturalist and a hydrobiologist, I am always happy to help identifying observations of freshwater animals, and this observation got me really excited, being a rare and endemic species that researchers from my lab are especially interested in. It’s always great to obtain such new data on these rare species and iNaturalist is an amazing tool to for this, as well as a great opportunity to get people involved in our research”.
We are looking forward to talking further with Damien and Valentin to see how this story may develop further, and excited for the results of Nicolas’ studies on the species. Watch this space!
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
June 9th 2021
Conservation, Fish, Interview, Lost Fishes, Stories
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Recent News
One quarter of freshwater animals at risk of extinction – IUCN Red List
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Michael and team in the field collecting goodeids in Mexico.[/caption]
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