PROJECT OVERVIEW: Among the most fascinating and most imperiled species on Earth, stickleback species pairs are known from just a few freshwater lakes in coastal British Columbia. In 2007, our team, led by Dr. Jen Gow, Dr. Michael Jackson and John Dafoe, discovered a new stickleback species pair in Little Quarry Lake on Nelson Island, BC. Action is urgently needed to help understand and conserve this species pair.
To help ensure the long-term survival of this unique species pair, our Nelson Island Stickleback Project aims to work with government, community members and Recovery Team members to identify, characterize and map essential habitat for the species, assess population sizes, evaluate threats, design a water quality and exotic species monitoring program, carry out targeted education activities, establish a Recovery Implementation Group, and write a Recovery Action Plan for the species pair.Our goal is to help ensure the maintenance of self-sustaining populations of the Little Quarry Lake stickleback species and prevent the extinction or collapse of the species pair.
ABOUT STICKLEBACK SPECIES PAIRS: Stickleback species pairs are among the rarest, most fascinating, most threatened species on Earth. These small, freshwater fish are restricted to specific coastal lakes in British Columbia’s Georgia Basin and found nowhere else on Earth. Collectively, they are one of only three groups of vertebrates in which very similar species can co-habit the same area (i.e., as sympatric species). The other two groups are the cichlid species in the great lake basins of Africa and Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands. Stickleback pairs are a remarkable example of evolution in action, and are among the youngest vertebrate species on the planet. They are of tremendous scientific interest due to their recent, rapid evolution.
Descended from the marine threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), each pair includes a surface-feeding “limnetic” species adapted for a zooplankton-consuming lifestyle, and a bottom-feeding “benthic species” adapted to feeding on benthic invertebrates in the littoral zone. Until recently, there were only four known stickleback species pairs from the following sites: Hadley Lake, Lasquiti Island; Enos Lake, Vancouver Island; Paxton Lake, Texada Island; and Vananda Creek watershed, Texada Island.
Highly threatened, stickleback species pairs are provincially, globally, and federally endangered. Of the original four species pairs, only two remain. The Hadley Lake pair became extinct within five years following introduction of brown bullhead. The Enos Lake pair collapsed into a hybridized swarm, a collapse thought to be related to the introduction of signal crayfish. Other species pairs in other lakes may have become extinct before even being discovered.
PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS:
Dr. Michael Jackson, is a freshwater ecologist and expert on ecological restoration. He helped establish and served as Founder and Chair of the Texada Stickleback Recovery Implementation Group, chaired the first stickleback symposium along with many other recovery planning meetings, and conducted field surveys to characterize and delineate critical habitat for the species.
Dr. Jen Gow, a postdoctoral researcher at UBC, has worked with sticklebacks in BC for more than five years. Her work has contributed valuable information to the Stickleback Species Pair Recovery Strategy, helping to support recovery planning. Dr Gow has served on the Pacific Scientific Advice and Review Committee for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and has also worked closely with local stewardship groups.
Professor Dolph Schluter, a renowned scientist and Canada Research Chair at UBC, is an expert on evolutionary biology who has studied stickleback species pairs for many years. He is a member of the Recovery Team for Non-game Freshwater Fish in British Columbia.
John Dafoe is the President of Coastwise Guide. A 35-year resident of the Sunshine Coast, John is a naturalist and conservationist and has provided wilderness tours of the region since 1990.
ABOUT STICKLEBACK SPECIES PAIRS
Dr. Michael Jackson, is a freshwater ecologist and expert on ecological restoration. He helped establish and served as Founder and Chair of the Texada Stickleback Recovery Implementation Group, chaired the first stickleback symposium along with many other recovery planning meetings, and conducted field surveys to characterize and delineate critical habitat for the species.