UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A suggestion that she is "queen of the shiners" makes Leslie Leckvarcik roll her eyes and chuckle. "That's silly," she responds, "they are just little fish I learned to breed. But I do hope to restore them."
The graduate student pursuing her doctoral degree in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences downplays the importance of her efforts to rescue endangered populations of two obscure fish species in northeastern Pennsylvania's Brodhead Creek drainage. Still, were it not for her research project, overseen by professor of ichthyology Jay Stauffer, there soon might not be any ironcolor or bridle shiners in the Keystone State.
Surrounded by dozens of aquaria holding thousands of less-than-2-inch-long shiners at the university's Rock Springs laboratory, nine miles southwest of campus near State College, Pa., Leckvarcik explains how she became queen -- err, savior -- of these Pennsylvania shiners. She hopes to introduce the little fish she has propagated into suitable habitat during the summer of 2003.
"I earned my undergraduate degree at East Stroudsburg State in the Poconos," she explained, "so when my advisor offered me the chance to work on the life history study of the ironcolor shiner, which is found only in Marshalls Creek near Stroudsburg -- an area I like and with which I am familiar -- I jumped at it."
Portions of a half-mile section of the Monroe County tributary to Brodhead Creek appear to have escaped the changes that spelled disaster for other shiner communities throughout the rest of the region. But now this last refuge of Pennsylvania's two rarest shiners is threatened by a highway project.
The Marshalls Creek Bypass will alleviate chronic traffic congestion around the intersections of U.S. Route 209, Business Route 209 and State Route 402. Although designers have selected an alignment expected to have the least impact on the stream, there is still concern that sediment and silt generated by construction may affect the shiners, both species of which have proven to be extremely sensitive to muddy water.
So officials of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission are taking no chances. Under Stauffer's guidance, a project was designed beginning in 2000 to reestablish populations of ironcolor and bridle shiners elsewhere in the Brodhead Creek watershed, using the offspring of a small number of wild shiners taken from Marshalls Creek. Stauffer preferred to preserve Pennsylvania's native genetic stock instead of introducing shiners from outside the state.
"The ironcolor shiner has never been bred in a laboratory before," says Leckvarcik. "I experimented with photoperiods (lighting), temperatures and food supply, trying to simulate winter conditions changing into spring -- and the ironcolor shiners responded. The females became gravid (full of eggs), and the males colored and began chasing the females."
She devised and installed on the aquarium bottoms boxes covered with vinyl mesh netting to capture the eggs and prevent the parents from eating them. "The next day I saw eggs in the boxes and two days later we had larvae. That first year we started with 25 adults and produced 800 offspring."
All 800 were breeders for the next year. About four months later, she tried the same technique to breed bridle shiners, with similar success. Now, after repeating the process numerous times, Penn State is holding thousands of shiners of both species for reintroductions into their native streams.
The breeding program first was funded by PennDOT and restoration efforts are being funded by the Fish and Boat Commission using money from the Federal Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program, an initiative designed for high-priority, high-profile conservation projects. A grant of just over $141,000 was awarded to Penn State for the project. Suitable habitat sites are being selected for stocking the shiners.
"The bridle shiner is being considered for federal endangered species status; the ironcolor shiner is rare, but more plentiful across its range," Leckvarcik notes. "I hope that this project will lead to the restoration of both species in Pennsylvania. Historically, bridle shiners were found in 36 streams in this state and the ironcolor shiner was found in four Pennsylvania watersheds.
"If we're successful, maybe eventually we can put them back where they belong in some of those streams that have recovered from human impact to the point where they could support a population of these fishes. This restoration effort might result in thriving populations of gamefish thriving that feed on shiners, in turn benefiting humans who enjoy them for recreation -- or gamefish could be the shiners' demise."
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EDITORS: Contact Jay Stauffer at 814-863-0645 or vc5@psu.edu.
Contact: Jeff Mulhollem jjm29@psu.edu 814-863-2719 814-863-9877 fax #274