I was honoured to receive the 2022 FSBI Medal for "exceptional advances in fish biology" from the Fisheries Society of the British Isles, and especially delighted to be able to receive it in person at their fantastic annual Symposium in Nottingham in July. More details in the local news here. I also enjoyed presenting on my research on invasive guppies as an invited speaker at the symposium with a talk entitled "Bringing the Guppy Home". |
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Guppies are exceptionally good at establishing in places outside of Trinidad, yet they have consistently failed to colonise Florida. I collaborated with colleagues from the University of Florida and Dr Doug Fraser to work out why.
It turns out the answer lies in the presence of another fish, the small but aggressive mosquitofish. Find out more here and read the original article in the journal Ecology, here. Former Deacon Lab MSc student, James Josaphat, has helped describe a new species of endemic poeciliid fish in his native Haiti!
It is not every day that a new vertebrate species is discovered! Many congratulations to authors Rodet Rodriguez-Silva, Patricia Torres-Pineda and James on this fruitful Caribbean collaboration, which was published this week in the journal Zootaxa. The work was funded by the National Geographic Society and the Caribaea Initiative. Fantastic to see James using the skills acquired during his Masters fieldwork to expand our knowledge of Caribbean biodiversity - which of course is the first step towards effectively conserving it. Looking forward to many more exciting discoveries and achievements from James, as he embarks on his PhD at the Université des Antilles. You can view the article and photos of the new species here: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4768.3.6/39622
We are looking for a local part-time research assistant (paid) to work for 2 months (March and April 2020) on projects on fish behaviour and environmental change in Trinidad. The projects will focus on predatory pike cichlids (Crenicichla frenata) and their guppy (Poecilia reticulata) prey.
You will assist a small research team from the University of Bristol run behavioural experiments in the field at the University of West Indies, St Augustine campus, and help with catching fish in the streams and rivers of the Northern Range. We are looking for someone resident to T&T who is enthusiastic, has an interest in ecology and evolution, is prepared to spend 2-3 days per week in the field, sometimes working long hours, and ideally has previous experience of fieldwork. Being a competent driver with valid licence and being 25+ years old (for hire car insurance reasons) would be good but not essential. If you are interested, please contact me, Dr Amy Deacon ([email protected]), with a copy of your CV, a covering letter detailing your motivation for applying and contact details of at least one referee. Any queries about the position should also be directed to Dr Deacon. Deadline: Monday 10th February 2020 (midnight). Imagine for a moment that you are a small fish living in a stream in the Northern Range. Your life is full of danger as you are prey to many other animals: fierce predatory fishes such as wolf fish or pike cichlids, ambush-hunting giant prawns, and even surprise aerial attacks from kingfishers and kiskadees. As if this wasn’t enough, new observations from the streams of the Arima Valley suggest that small fish, such as guppies and jumping guabine, have yet another type of predator to worry about: giant predatory fishing spiders!
Last week I was interviewed by local journalist Shereen Ali about our work on recreational disturbance of T&T's rivers. I think she did a great job at getting the central messages of the research across and raising awareness of the potential impact we can have on aquatic biodiversity (see bottom of post for downloadable pdf of article).
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