Hello,
In late April I came by K2 stone to pick up slate to be used for a research project I was conducting near Ladysmith Britsh Colombia. I have written a brief summary of the study system and how we used the stone. I’ve also attached some photos of the work that we did in the field.
Many thanks!
Aneesh Bose
The plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus, is a species of marine teleost, closely related to toadfish. Throughout the majority of the year, they live in deep waters (200+ meters), however, in later April/early May they undertake a huge migration up to the shallow waters and intertidal regions of the west coast of North America. Males dig out burrows beneath or in-between rocks, from where they “sing” to attract females. To us, the song of these midshipman fish sounds similar to humming, and is generated by vibrating their swim bladder at a high frequency with specially adapted sonic muscles.
When they hear these “songs”, a female chooses a single male to spawn with and lays her eggs in his nest. The females then promptly swim away, leaving the male behind to provide all the parental care duties for the offspring! The parental care period lasts for approximately 2 months until the eggs hatch and the fry are able to swim for themselves and leave the nest.
An interesting aspect of the midshipman fish’s biology, is the fact that many males choose to create nests in the intertidal regions, and this means that nests are often exposed to the air when the tides retreat. These fish have evolved the incredible capacity to survive out of water for hours on end! Other species of fish that have evolved a similar capability include the lungfish and the killifish.
My research uses these fish to answer questions about how animals provide parental care for their offspring. The main objectives of parental care is the same for all animals, including humans: to protect and promote the proper development of your children. However, this objective is achieved in different ways depending on which species you are observing. We are using this slate to construct nesting sites for midshipman fish. We purchased around 85 tiles and set them out along the intertidal zone of Ladysmith Inlet in late April. Approximately 80% of the tiles were taken up by fish to be used as nesting sites within a couple weeks. By early July, about half of the tiles had clutches of offspring (eggs and fry) that could be used for our study. We use these artificial nests, because the clutches laid under the slate are far easier to observe than those laid under large beach rocks or in crevices that are inaccessible to us.
We are grateful to K2 Stone, Duke Point for supplying the slate needed for our field research. We anticipate that the nests built this summer should be usable for several years to come.
Aneesh Bose
M.Sc. student
Aquatic Behaviour and Ecology Lab
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1, Canada
866-722-2420