Texas Natural History Collection - Fishes

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Conservation of Texas freshwater fish diversity: selection of Species of Greatest Conservation Need
(Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept, 2020) Birdsong, Timothy; Garrett, Gary; Bean, Megan; Bean, Preston; Curtis, Stephen; Fleming, Paul; Grubh, Archis; Lutz-Carrillo, Dijar; Mayes, Kevin; Robertson, Clint; Robertson, Sarah; Schlechte, Warren; Smith, Nathan
Conservation Status of Texas Freshwater Fishes and Protected Species Recommendations
(2020-01-24) Birdsong, Timothy; Bean, Megan; Mayes, Kevin; Robertson, Sarah; Curtis, Stephen
Texas harbors 191 species of native freshwater fishes, 91 of which are considered imperiled. A litany of regulatory and voluntary-based conservation measures are routinely implemented to restore and preserve the diversity of Texas freshwater fishes. Use of specific conservation tools, programs, funding, and other resources available for freshwater fish conservation are generally limited to specific sets of species designated on particular lists, such as the lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) and State Threatened or Endangered Species (State T&E), among others. For example, freshwater fishes listed as SGCN are prioritized by TPWD for voluntary-based investments in research, monitoring, habitat restoration, and habitat protection. Those species also receive special consideration as TPWD provides conservation recommendations to other local, state, and federal agencies through regulatory-based consultations on projects that have the potential to alter freshwater systems. Additional regulatory protections are available for freshwater fishes listed as State T&E. This includes a substantial increase in the civil restitution value of State T&E fishes (considered a deterrent for responsible parties), with each State Endangered fish valued at US $1,000 per individual and each State Threatened fish valued at $500 per individual. Regulatory oversight by TPWD of scientific and zoological collection of freshwater fishes, stocking of fishes into public waters, commercial fishing activities in public waters, disturbances to State-owned streambeds, and exotic species management must also ensure that no adverse impacts occur to State T&E fishes. This presentation will profile State resources available for the conservation of freshwater fishes; discuss conservation implications for listing of species as SGCN or State T&E; describe the species status assessment approach and stakeholder input process used to identify species recommended for inclusion on these two lists; and outline the remaining steps and anticipated timelines for completing the next revisions of these two protected species lists.
Declines and Losses of Spring/Ciénega Ecosystems in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas
(2017-07-15) Garrett, Gary; Bean, Megan; Edwards, Robert; Hendrickson, Dean A.
Desert ecosystems are particularly susceptible to anthropogenic influences. This is especially true for desert aquatic systems where limited water resources can be easily impaired by excessive water mining depleting the underlying aquifers. Although the aquatic environments and their associated native fishes are declining throughout the Chihuahuan Desert, we will focus on examples from the Big Bend region, the Balmorhea Springs Complex, the Pecos River region, and the Devils River region. Ongoing and impending land use and water consumption patterns suggest even further reductions in the near future. Even though numerous conservation activities are underway, archaic Texas water laws must be revisited and reformulated if the desert aquatic systems are to be truly conserved for more than the immediate future.
Fishes of Texas Project: Government-University Collaboration to Improve Science and Conservation Management
(The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and the American Institute for Conservation, 2021-06-21) Hendrickson, Dean; Cohen, Adam; Casarez, Melissa; Garrett, Gary; Birdsong, Timothy; Robertson, Sarah; Curtis, Stephen; Mayes, Kevin; Bean, Megan
Since 2006 the Fishes of Texas (FoTX) Project at University of Texas Austin (UT) has sought to improve freshwater fish occurrence data for the state of Texas and make it openly accessible to facilitate research and improve aquatic resource management. Seven federal and state sponsors have contributed funding, but 73% of the total $2.7 million has come from US Fish and Wildlife Service’s State Wildlife Grant Program via Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). Initially the Project focused on data digitization and compilation of strictly specimen-vouchered data, followed by georeferencing and development of an interactive website/database (http://www.fishesoftexas.org). More recently, non-vouchered citizen science, angler-based, and agency datasets have been added, thereby increasing both geographic and temporal density of records, and a selected subset of data fields for all records is now published to GBIF and iDigBio. The project’s comprehensive data aggregation (44 contributing collections), digitization, normalization, accessibility and high data quality (based, in part on extensive taxonomic determination verification via specimen examination), enabled significant advances in detection and awareness of statewide faunal trends that led to implementation of diverse management advances. Examples include improved field guides and documentation of species’ ranges, expansions and contractions, community composition shifts, improved species conservation status assessments, and documentation of both long-term expansions of invasive species and new introductions. Relatively new to the Project are statewide aquatic bioassessments - intensive fieldwork planned using tools available in our website that facilitate exploration of geographic and temporal sampling histories and reveal under-sampled areas. Consequently, gaps in knowledge of regional faunas have been steadily decreasing. The website and database are widely used; 90% of presentations on related topics at last year’s statewide fisheries meeting utilized FoTX products. This now long-term, consistent funding created a productive partnership between UT and TPWD. With the Project’s bioassessments generating specimens, and TPWD’s independent routine fish sampling increasingly depositing specimens, our collection (TNHCi - https://www.gbif.org/dataset/6080b6cc-1c24-41ff-ad7f-0ebe7b56f311) has nearly doubled in size over the last decade. Last year, TPWD’s list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need was updated, with major changes based on the improved knowledge provided by FoTX. TPWD now funds a full-time Assistant Collection Manager position focusing on bioassessments, but also doing basic collection management and supervision of student and volunteer help. Another grant-funded position, a liaison between the collection and TPWD staff, spawned the ongoing statewide Texas Native Fish Conservation Areas program that coordinates funding and actions of diverse stakeholders for watershed-scale conservation. Both externally funded UT positions participate in diverse collections-based research and outreach endeavors for both UT and TPWD. The FoTX website was developed in large part by staff in UT’s science database group in the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) - a collaboration that blossomed into long-term technical support for collection database management and data publication that has since expanded to support all other collections in UT’s Biodiversity Center.
Guide to the sunfish of Texas
(Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 2020-01) Bean, Megan
Proceedings of the Desert Fishes Council Special Publication 2021
(Desert Fishes Council, 2021) Bean, Megan; Garrett, Gary; Hoagstrom, Christopher
Year 1 report for ‘Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need’
(2015-12-31) Hendrickson, Dean A.; Garrett, Gary P.; Labay, Ben J.; Cohen, Adam E.; Casarez, Melissa
Substantive progress was made on all major Project Activities in this first year: Activity 1. Coordinate and Facilitate Science and Conservation Actions for Conserving Texas Biodiversity - We expanded and strengthened UT-TPWD coordination, transitioning the relationship between these partners into a much more collaborative one than was previously realized. The flow of data between TPWD and the Fishes of Texas Project (supported in part by this project) has become much more bi-directional. Many newly collected TPWD specimens, agency databases, legacy data products and reports, and feedback from resource managers are now beginning to contribute substantively to growth and diversity (now including non-specimen-vouchered records) of data served through the FoTX Project’s websites. Work on cleaning and normalizing of FoTX’s online specimen-vouchered database continued, and the updated FoTX occurrence and distribution data are being actively used. Most recently they were used by this project, together with expert (TPWD, UT and others’) opinions, to develop recommendations on conservation status of native fishes of Texas’ Species of Greatest Conservation Need for TPWD’s consideration in anticipated updates to the Texas Conservation Action Plan. Within two months of this report, a new and substantially larger and improved version of the FoTX website/database and related collection of images, field notes, and ancillary datasets, will be formally announced. Activity 2. Identify Priority Geographic Management Units for Conserving Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need - We used FoTX data in a systematic conservation area prioritization analysis to identify Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs) for large portions of Texas where such comprehensive planning had not been previously carried out. Updated and new FoTX data for all Texas fish Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) were used in production of newly improved Species Distribution Models for input into this planning process, and the results of the planning exercise have already been integrated by TPWD into management prioritizations of both those species and the resultant NFCAs. Activity 3. Develop Monitoring and Conservation Plans for Native Fish Conservation Areas - Monitoring and conservation plans were delivered to TPWD for all NFCAs identified in Activity 2. Activity 4. Conduct Field-Based Surveys Detailed Biodiversity Assessments (i.e. Bioblitzing), and Citizen-Based Monitoring - Field surveys with detailed biodiversity assessments (“bioblitzes”) and citizen-based monitoring were conducted in three areas selected collaboratively by TPWD and FoTX Project staff from within the identified NFCAs: Nueces River headwaters, Big Cypress Bayou basin, and Village Creek basin. Along with this field effort, FoTX Project staff developed and circulated guidelines and best practices, and provided training for citizen-based monitoring that leverages iNaturalist for capture and reporting of photo-vouchered occurrence records in ways that will help assure scientifically useful data are obtained. All specimens acquired during these field efforts, and from many other routine specimen acquisitions from across the state (1845 total records/jars of specimens), were cataloged in the UT Fish Collection database. From there, these new records will soon be fed into GBIF, VertNet, FishNet2 and other major online data aggregators, including the online Fishes of Texas database.

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Browsing Texas Natural History Collection - Fishes by Author "Bean, Megan"