Genesee River

Sorry for the long time between posts. My older camera (which I got for free when I purchased my computer to enter college) got some grit in the camera motor and cannot extend the lens any longer. As a result it could not talk any pictures so I was hesitant to fill the blog with text about my work. As an early birthday present I received a more rugged Fuji camera, so today will be filled with images as well as some underwater footage! Please note I was working alone so these pictures/videos will not be great as I was trying to do two things at once and the sky was overcast so the light levels were pretty low.

 The above pic is a good size distribution of the ammocoetes I see at my site. Keep in mind these are American brook lamprey so ammocoetes can be quite large (approaching 25cm). The animal at the top is likely a two year old (sorry I captured no animals <2 years old at this pool). Bottom bar is in cm's, top two bars are in inches.

It must be August because some ammocoetes are already getting ready for spawning in the spring. The animal below is a "transformer". You can see the eye developing the head shape is changing and the body is very thick (from all the fat reserves). The animal above is a normal ammocoete. The lower animal will probably feed very little in the next 8 months and will travel upstream to spawn in March or April (whenever water temperatures are good for spawning). Here it is showing off the tag it received before it was released.

 Another similar picture of the same animals, with a little different lighting.

Don't let anyone ever tell you lampreys are not important for ecosystems. I captured all of these animals in an area of about 1m² of habitat.There were actually quite a few more this is just part of the first pass. The amount of biomass literally under your feet as you walk through a stream can be quite surprising! These are the fish in the sand, but think of all the invertebrates (insects, worms [of all kinds], leeches, etc.) that are also in these areas. Animals like these bioturbate, convert plant and detritus into animal biomass, and actually change the very chemistry of the world they live in.

Above is a picture of the electro shocker I currently use. Backpacks like these use a small battery and control the output to surprise and stun fish. The Smith-Root LR-24 allows me to use a low power shock to scare the lampreys out of the substrate. Once they emerge I switch to another high power setting to immobilize them briefly so I can collect them. The yellow paddle is the stock paddle provided by the company. The white paddle is unique to lamprey hunting and is a modification of the other end (normally a long bare metal wire) so I can shock and grab by myself. The battery in this picture is under the control pannel on the back and is covered by a plastic piece. The battery is unfortunately for me, Lead-Acetate, and weighs ~30 pounds. Having 30 pounds on your back is not that big a deal, but it sits low and it is much harder to walk in the slippery streams when your center of gravity is shifted back and behind you.

This is one of the coolest pictures I took while I was out. There is some debate about whether and how much ammocoetes get eaten. Well here is proof that even large ammocoetes are the target of predators. This animal apparently was lucky because all it did was lose almost all of its tail. Here the tail is slowly growing back, although that probably limits its ability to swim until it does.

A close up of the tail from the injured animal. I promise I had nothing to do with this. The animal was not even one of the one's I had tagged until yesterday.

Another recap from May 2014 quietly sitting in the same sheltered pool it was left in last time. Hopefully it remains so I can keep catching it and seeing how fast it is growing. At the rate it is going now it will be an adult in 2016 or maybe 2017.

Above is a video of some of the lampreys being placed under general anesthesia before I begin tagging them. The anesthesia is irritating to mucus membranes (which is basically the whole lamprey body) so they are swimming around trying to find a way out. After about 60 seconds things settle down and the animals go completely under after 3-4 minutes. By the time they wake up they have been tagged, weighed, and had their length measured.

Here is a video of me releasing my tagged lampreys into the pool in which they came from in the first place. The animals are very excited to get back into the sediment. You may notice a net on the edge of the pool. I use a net to keep animals from escaping as I capture other by surrounding the area I am working with a net. I leave it there until all the animals re-burrow.