New Year's greeting

Geometric morphometry

Saša spent his last days in Slovenia to collect grayling specimens for geometric morphometry. First we went to the fish farm in Tolmin for the Adriatic grayling.

  >   Dušan, Saša and Pele were well-tempered after having a "baklava" cake. 

The next day we made a brief visit in the fish farm Bled to collect also "normal" (Sava) grayling.

>   Toni, the manager of the fish farm Bled, is looking for some females (grayling females), and Saša is encouraging him.

Obvious differences between the two sample sets were evident at the first glance, hopefully the geometric morphometry (and genetics :)) will tell us more about a reason for these differences.

 >   Adriatic grayling

>   Sava grayling

Trip to Bosnia

Few days after Nejc defended his diploma thesis, he, I and my son Matija made a fly-fishing trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina to celebrate the hard expecting event. We used this opportunity to check the presence of Cottus sp. in some of its most enigmatic spots such as the Krka and Neretva river systems. I enjoyed revisiting my old ways and showing the youngsters charms of the Balkans.

Due to the – crisis, the department management decided to get rid of our good old Ford Galaxy; the last straw was the hole in its exhausting pipe. The other car, LR Discovery has become very busy lately; during the described field trip, it was indispensably needed as a shuttle from Rodica to Gozd Martuljk for some conference purposes... So I addressed our colleagues from the Faculty of Forestry, who kindly lent me (no charge!) their Renault Traffic van. Thank you very much!

>   We are heading to Babića jezero, which is via subterranean passages connected to Butižnica River-the right tributary to the Krka River.

>   The lake was some meters below its normal level. There were plenty of Cottus.

>   On the way to Konjic we visited the confluent of the Neretva and Buna Rivers, and made a quick stop in Mostar.

>   Abbey road scene in some Mostar street.

>   The bridge over the Neretva River in Jablanica, which was destroyed by the Yugoslav partisans in the fourth enemy offensive (Battle of the Neretva) during the Second World War.

>   On the way to Boračko jezero; remaining ruins of a house destroyed during the last Balkan war.

>   Who says that there are no Cottus in the Neretva?

>   Warming up for fly-fishing.

>   Great expectations.

>   The first fly-fished trout in life.

>   In otio diem peragere.

Saša is in Slovenia

Saša has recently come to Slovenia to finish several previously initiated projects including Caspian grayling and trout.

After his arrival to the bus station in Ljubljana, he immediately proceeded to the lab in Rodica to start DNA isolation. Exceptionally hard-working and valuable guy!

23rd LIFFe

With revival of BTRG site, we had also awakened traditional visit of LIFFe festival, the participation of which is obligatory. Only the most eager members (Tamara and Urška) plus the new ones (Ida and David), who did not dare to say no, and of course Aleš-the boss attended the event.

We were watching The Loneliest Planet, which was far from what the trailer promised (see below).

Nobody liked it but we've been talking about it for quite some time. After the movie, we went to Mexican restaurant to drown disappointment in booze and hot food. Lots of fun.

Urška's PhD defense

Three weeks ago, Urška defended her PhD “Genetic background of coloration and color pattern formation in trout”, mentored by Simona Sušnik Bajec.

To identify and characterize genes potentially involved in skin coloration and color pattern formation in marble trout (Salmo marmoratus), she compared skin transcriptome profiles from marble trout, brown trout (S. trutta), and marble trout x brown trout hybrids exhibiting the marble color pattern, using a salmonid 32K cDNA microarray.

Thesis highlights: •transcription analysis revealed seven genes that are differentially expressed between marble and brown trout and are involved in the biological process of animal pigmentation •the formation of marble color pattern in trout depends on wnt signaling pathway •the origin of marble color pattern is based on reaction-diffusion mechanism.

It was a very nice presentation, actually for most of us her first public appearance on the stage.

Just before the presentation started (no worries evident)…

…and just after it face to face with passionate fisherman prof. dr. Rado Komel, a member of examination board.

> All's well that ends well.

> Let’s see what Darwin says about it.

> Kinsfolk never give up.

Russian expedition - part I

In 2010, Saša got acquainted with Dr. Oleg Askeyev, the head of Biomonitoring Laboratory at the Institute of Problems in Ecology and Mineral Wealth, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences in Kazan. He found out about us via this website. Due to our common interests, we saw a potential of mutual collaboration; in August 2011, Saša, Matjaž Červek (my outdoor buddy) and I responded to a Russian invitation for a 14-days expedition to pre-Ural area in Tatarstan, Orenburg and Bashkiria, in the first place to perform Thymallus thymallus sampling, which took place in the middle Kama and upper Ural river systems.

 > The expedition team: Igor (Oleg’s twin brother, ichthyologist), Aleš, Oleg, Matjaž, Saša, Sergey Monakhov (ichthyologist, PhD student), Rustem the driver, Dmitry (biologist and excellent cook in the field) and the famous UAZ 4WD van. Saša Belayev (small mammal  expert and curator of the Natural history museum) is taking the picture.

> From my perspective, the celebrity of this expedition was grayling; we found them in small headstreams, which are in Slovenia normally populated with brown trout only. This is only one of several differences that make the Caspian grayling distinct from the Sava ones.

> Net was the main fishing tool; quite some skill is needed to use it effectively.

For more details, see Field trips.