{"id":1903,"date":"2021-02-15T02:04:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T07:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/?p=1903"},"modified":"2023-07-28T13:42:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T17:42:15","slug":"whats-eating-atlantic-sturgeon-eggs-and-larvae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/whats-eating-atlantic-sturgeon-eggs-and-larvae\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Eating Atlantic Sturgeon Eggs and Larvae?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New research identifies the predators.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research Need<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Blue catfish share the waters where Atlantic sturgeon go to spawn, ever since the blue catfish were introduced to the area in the 1970s as sport fish. In Virginia, there has been a longstanding question about the effect blue catfish and other native and nonnative fish species have on Atlantic sturgeon, which was listed as an endangered species in 2012. Conservation scientists use a variety of innovative partnerships and techniques to study, protect, and recover these endangered fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather Evans, a conservation geneticist for North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, who works in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences\u2019 Genomics Research Lab, joined forces with Aaron Bunch from the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and other colleagues in search of data that would help determine whether other species consume sturgeon \u2014 and, if so, how much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did they study?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally, analysis of the stomach contents of fish has relied on visual identification under a microscope, which is challenging at best. The method only works within 24 hours of ingestion and rarely, if ever, results in identification of Atlantic sturgeon in its early life stages, because those small, soft tissues digest in the stomach extremely rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bunch and Evans, however, relied on a relatively new technique of DNA sequencing, which can detect even the smallest evidence of early life-stage sturgeon anywhere in the digestive tracts of other fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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