American Fisheries Society

Andromous sturgeons; habitats, threats, and management; proceedings.

The proceedings of the symposium held August 2003 address aspects of the plight of these species, most of which face extinction. Fortunately, if one can make that claim, that problem has led to increased interest and research, leading to work in the sturgeons' habitat, threats and restoration, management and population trends with a range of topics, including several case studies. Contributors describe research in seasonal refugia and trophic dormancy in gulf sturgeon that refute the thermal barrier hypothesis, seasonal movements of the sturgeon in the Gulf of Mexico, the relationship between sturgeon and water flow, macrobenthos assemblages and their potential to provide food, statistics on tagging exercises with Atlantic sturgeon, tracking the effects of dumping, remediation in the Baltic Sea, tracking sturgeon in the Hudson River, attempts to develop an index of abundance, and means of testing the reliability of split-beam hydroacoustic monitoring. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Bluegills; biology and behavior.

Spotte (Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida) takes an unconventional approach in his depiction of an unconventional fish, long a favorite for sport. He does not seek to merely inform those who have an abstract or mundane relationship with the bluegill, but instead to help readers experience the fish. He enjoys the intellectual challenge of having the fish more or less speak for itself through its behaviors, so he describes bluegill movement, sensory perception, foraging, competition, predation, reproduction, development, growth, mortality and only then of its management, so readers get to know the fish before they begin to attempt to order them about. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Salmonid field protocols handbook; techniques for assessing status and trends in salmon and trout populations.

Primarily based on Pacific Salmon research, this handbook describes 13 field sampling protocols and five supplemental techniques for determining the abundance, distribution, and productivity of salmon populations, especially in stream and river networks. The protocols guide the field practitioner in the selection of appropriate methods to collect fish once the sampling locations have been determined. Each protocol reviews the evolution of the method, walks through the actual field method and data capture, and lists personnel requirements and equipment needs. A glossary and some black and white photographs are provided. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Sockeye salmon evolution, ecology, and management.

This collection of articles and photographs gives managers a good idea of recent research into what the sockeye salmon is and does, covering such topics as the vulnerability and value of sockeye salmon ecotypes, their homing ability, using new technologies to monitor reproduction, DNA and a founder event in the Lake Clark sockeye salmon, marine-derived nutrients, the exploitation of large prey, dynamic lake spawning migrations by females, variability of sockeye salmon residence, expression profiling using cDNA microarray technology, learning from stable isotropic records of native otolith hatcheries, the amount of data needed to manage sockeye salmon and estimating salmon "escapement." (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Status, distribution, and conservation of native freshwater fishes of Western North America; proceedings.

The western US has become the lifestyle target of millions, most of whom bring with them their automobiles and hunger for real estate. The consequence has been the development of large tracts of land and waterways once belonging to native freshwater fish. This is particularly true of non-game species or those without economic value that do not receive protection from government. Here researchers address the concerns of these species in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, new Mexico, California, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Hawaii, British Columbia and Sonora, with reports on the status of the humpback chub, the roundtail chub, June suckers, leatherside chub, desert redband trout, and the Oregon chub. Other papers address the Columbia River fishes of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a look at the bonytail of Colorado and the Pacific lamphrey in Red River Idaho, and the conservation of such species as the Bull Trout in Washington. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)