What's the lab been up to?

2020: A weird year, right?  In spite of the Covid craziness, our own Jackson Sibley managed to drum out a successfully defended thesis.  Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to DNR Region 1 Fisheries Biologist in the northwest corner corner of GA.  Congrats Jackson!
Picture
November 2019: The lab attended a great (as always) Southeastern Fishes Council meeting in Knoxville.  Here Jewel Streeter shows off the poster based on his summer NSF-REU project examining larval fish distribution and abundance in the Ogeechee River.
May 2019: It's been a tough year hydrologically for Robust redhorse monitoring. In late May we helped SC DNR biologists sample eDNA and attempt a drone survey of spawners in the Savannah River (see video), but none could be found.  Apparently the fish had already done their thing and left the gravel bar.
May 2019: It's not all work being a fish biologist!  Here Jamie and Damon Mullis use specialized sampling gear to complete a hat trick for Micropterus on the Savannah River.  Top to bottom are Largemouth, Smallmouth, and the endemic Bartram's bass.  We're working on completing a Georgia bass slam in 2019.  Three down, seven to go!
August 2018: Grayson, Zach, Scott, Paul, and Hayley prepare to head into the trenches to map microhabitat usage by various fish species in Beaverdam Creek.  Hayley presented a poster summarizing this work at the GA AFS meeting in February.
June 2018: Kudos to Becky for the successful defense of her Master's thesis, "Predictors of fish assemblage structure and dynamics in Atlantic Coastal Plain streams".  She's now off to the University of South Florida to complete a PhD in the Ainsworth lab.
May 2018: A soggy but successful trip helping the GA DNR collect and tag Robust redhorse on the Savannah River.  Clockwise from top left: 1) Paul and Jamie help Peter Dimmick, Deb Weiler, and Tony Dodd set the megafyke.  2) Aftermath of seining into the megafyke.  3) One of the handsome males collected and implanted with a Vemco tag.  4) Paul finally lays hands on a Robust!  All photos courtesy of Alan Cressler.
December 2017: Jackson and Jamie with a 42-pound striped bass, captured by the GA DNR in the Savannah River and implanted with an acoustic tag to track movement patterns.
November 2017: Congratulations to Alex for successfully defending his thesis: "A population genetic investigation of the Reticulated flatwoods salamander on Eglin Air Force Base". 

​What's he gonna do next?  It's a good bet he's going to Disney World!
July 2017: A flathead catfish meets an amorous biologist, momentarily distracted from his search for logperch in Goose Creek, Bedford, VA.

L-R: Paul, Garrett, Garret, Jamie
April 2017: Robust redhorse aplenty at the lower gravel bar below New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam on the Savannah River.  Note the chasing, flanking, and other reproductive behaviors.
March 2017: The GSU Fisheries Biology class helps spawn white and striped bass, alongside Jackson Sibley, Frank Buchanan, Jason Howard, and Chris Harper of the Richmond Hill Fish Hatchery.
January 2017: Great success at the Annual Georgia AFS Meeting!  

Jackson won the Chapter's Annual Scholarship, while Becky and Garret took 1st and 2nd place, respectively, in the oral presentation competition.
January 2017: Congratulations and cheers to Jack for successfully defending his thesis on Friday the 13th!
November 2017: Jamie with a nice Robust redhorse captured while boat electrofishing the lower Savannah River with the GADNR and SCDNR.
August 2016: New paper hot off the press!

Eschenroeder, J.C. and J.H. Roberts.  Online Early.  Novel polymorphic microsatellite loci for distinguishing rock bass (Ambloplites rupestris), Roanoke bass (Ambloplites cavifrons), and their hybrids.  Molecular Biology Reports, DOI 10.1007/s11033-016-4049-0.
July/August 2016: The Coastal Plain Flows and Fishes project is going full bore!  Clockwise from top left: 1) The fish crew electrofishing Black Creek.  2) Becky with a nice Bowfin.  3) Jamie and guest-netter Holly Roberts.  4) A Savannah darter.
July 2016: Refusing to let a broken ankle get him down, Alex presents his poster on Flatwoods salamander population genetics at the JMIH meeting in New Orleans.
May 2016: The fisheries lab and friends go a-shark fishin.  

Sharks 1, Lab 0.

L-R: Jack, Shelby, Garret, Stuart, Becky, Alex.
March 2016: Congratulations to Jack for winning Best Student Paper for his oral presentation at the 2016 Joint Meeting of the Virginia and North Carolina Chapters of AFS!  Here Jack is accepting his honorarium from Craig Roghair.
September 2015: Photos from the GSU Ichthyology class's field trip to North Georgia (Nottely and Oconee rivers).
July 2015: On the trail of Roanoke logperch eDNA, Garret and Jamie filter samples of water from various Virginia rivers.  DNA will later be extracted from these filters, subjected to qPCR with logperch-specific primers, and the results will indicate whether rivers do or do not contain the species.
May 2015: On a recent trip to the Savannah River downstream of Augusta, Steve Vives helps with visual surveys for spawning Robust redhorse (note fish in foreground).  On the right, there's a trio of spawning Robust redhorse.  In all, we counted around 120 fish.
Jamie Roberts moves on (clickable link)
February 2015: No, not an obituary...it's a very kind sendoff from Jamie's long-time colleagues and friends at Virginia Tech.
March 2015: Alex, Jamie, and Jack at the Cascades waterfall during a sample collecting trip to Blacksburg.
March 2015: A couple of cool finds from a foray into GSU's campus stream, Beautiful Eagle Creek.  Here you have a banded pygmy sunfish (above) and a greater siren (below).