Save the Blue Heart of Europe

BTRG joins the Balkan Rivers campaign, "Save the Blue Heart of Europe", initiated by Ulrich Eichelmann, head of the NGO Riverwatch, as a response to the threat of hundreds of planned hydropower dams throughout the western Balkans.
More details about this conservation initiative can be found at www.balkanrivers.net.

Erratum to "Molecular phylogeny of Salmo of the western Balkans, based upon multiple nuclear loci"

After publication of this work, Johannes noted a mistake occurring in Table 1, Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 4 and on page 6 (Result section). In these places of the article, we wrote that the two brown trout samples of the Mediterranean (ME) lineage came from Sardinia, which is not the case. These two samples of the ME lineage were taken from the small river Caranca, a tributary to the Tet River in France and this lineage carried a single mtDNA haplotype MEcs3. Samples were provided by Patrick Berrebi.

This information could be much misleading for those who study Mediterranean trout given that only AD and AT haplotypes have been found in Sardinian rivers so far.

 

The authors thank Johannes for pointing out the mistake and apologize for this awkwardness.

 

New publication - finally

We used SNP markers developed by Gašper in his PhD work for reconstructing Salmo phylogeny with emphasis on Balkan trout.The results have been just published in GSE, 2014, 46:7.

Mr. René Beaumont visited BTRG

Last week we hosted Mr. René Beaumont, the founder of Continental Trout Conservation Fund (CTCF).

Together we made a trip to the Soča river, visited Dušan Jesenšek, discussed situation of indigenous trout in Slovenia and the Balkans and also used this opportunity to perform a “photo session” of marble x brown trout hybrids for the purpose of coloration patter formation study.

> Electrofishing for hybrids in Stopnikarca stream. The fish are a product of natural hybridization between S. marmoratus x S. trutta, experimentally initiated about a decade ago by introducing into a fishless stretch an equal number of marble and brown trout individuals.

Next day a meeting was arranged at the Department of Animal Science, where René presented the role and mission of CTCF. Quite some people being in one way or another connected with trout attended this meeting; René’s presentation was highly interesting, the ideas  promising and well appreciated by everybody.

Saša is going home

It's been almost a month since Saša Marić came on the traditional visit to BTRG genetic laboratory. This time, the main issue of his work was phylogeography of Balkan trout based on entire D-loop sequences and as well population genetic analysis of Balkan bullhead from karstic system in Serbia; the main idea was to examine underground gene flow between populations lacking surface interconnections. Tomorrow he is going home, sweet home.

New publication

A paper describing a part of Urška's PhD thesis has been published recently in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology.
Paper highlights: •identification of four genes likely involved in color pattern in marble trout. •marble pattern is partially based upon a reaction-diffusion mechanism, which is known to be responsible for different color pattern formation also in other animals

See an interesting movie of marble pattern formation below.

Russian expedition part II - European taimen

In the summer, 2012 Saša attended another expedition organized by Oleg Askeyev, this time to go for European taimen. The expedition started in Larix sibirica zone (the trees behind).


The main idea was to solve the question of the origin of this fish: did they evolve from European Huchen or Asiatic taimen?

>  Tayga in western Ural - European taimen country

>  European taimen - apparently not very different from its Danubian relative with the exception of the red-colored anal and caudal fins, something resembling a "real" taimen. What will the molecules say?