SGER: Effects On and Recovery of Mississipppi Fish Digenean Populations Resulting from Hurricane Katrina

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0608603Overstreet Hurricane Katrina caused devastation not just on land in the northern Gulf of Mexico region but also on sea and at the land-sea margin. Coastal barrier islands were inundated and many were re-shaped in size, lagoons and marshes were flooded, and populations of fishes, shellfish and other marine and coastal organisms presumably were destroyed or affected in various other ways. Dr Overstreet at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory has been studying the species composition and abundances of coastal fishes and mollusks for many years, and will be working with colleagues and students over the next two years to assess hurricane-related impacts on fish and mollusk diversity in the northern Gulf coastal region and recovery, if any, in these populations. A specific target of inquiry will be the composition and spread of blood-borne parasites (digenean flukes and flatworms) infecting fishes, in particular those which use mollusks as secondary or intermediate hosts during their life-cycle growth and maturation. Presence in juvenile fishes of particular parasites would indicate the continuing presence of the mollusks that serve as intermediate hosts. Surveys for fishes and mollusks, with associated museum-preservation and vouchering of specimens and life-history studies of the parasites in laboratory cultures, will commence this first year, following the Fall 2005 hurricanes, and follow-up surveys in year 2 will permit assessments of population recovery or decline. Students currently associated with Dr Overstreets laboratory will participate in the research, along with undergraduate students recruited from minority-serving Mississippi colleges and high school students recruited from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.