Georgia: Swimming in diversity

After the murky water settles, Georgia may have more fish than scientists thought.

A group of researchers who set out to build a digital catalog of Georgia's fish now believe the state may be the third-most aquatically diverse state in the country after describing and redescribing certain species.

"We found species showing up in places we didn't know they were there," said Dr. Bud Freeman, an ichthyologist with the Georgia Museum of Natural History.

Georgia was known to have 219 species of freshwater fish in 1997, but after the cataloging effort by Dr. Freeman and other researchers, the number stands at 265, according to a release from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

In the last decade, scientists have determined many subspecies, such as the ridge and valley sculpin in Dade County, are distinct from parent populations and have been either officially renamed or are working to rename the fish, Dr. Freeman said.

Scientists involved with the project, who called Northwest Georgia a "hotbed" for diversity of fish, say they considered a traditional paper-and-ink catalog of species, but decided on a digital version with interactive species lists and maps.

"We could publish maybe 5,000 copies of a distributional atlas, but we've already had 20,000 page views," Dr. Freeman said. "That's the power of the Internet."

He said the site has been visited by people from 48 states and 521 cities around the world, including Bangkok, Thailand; Madrid, Spain; and Budapest, Hungary.

Dr. Brett Albanese, a senior aquatic biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said that North Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee all have widely used printed fish atlases, but the catalog is new for Georgia. The researchers were not able to find a similar up-to-date catalog for Georgia, in print or online, he said.

"No one has really done this before," he said.

Dr. Albanese said the maps on the Web site underscore just how many types of fish call Northwest Georgia home. The Conasauga River and its tributaries have 75 species, for instance.

"It's really kind of a cradle for biodiversity of aquatic species," the biologist said.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

* Researchers spent thousands of hours cataloging fish in Georgia to create a database of 159,207 unique fish records. The Web site includes lists, photographs and maps.

* Most of the collections are focused in the northwestern portion of the state where a higher proportion of threatened and endangered species occurs.

* Twenty-one species of fish have not been formally described.

* The project was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Museum of Natural History.

Source: www.fishesofgeorgia.uga.edu

ON THE WEB

www.fishesofgeorgia.uga.edu