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Collection sites for Ictalurus from northwestern Mexico. River basin boundaries are indicated by thick lines and state boundaries by thin lines. Numbers correspond to sampling localities in Table 1.
Source publication
The genus Ictalurus is represented in northwest Mexico by a taxonomically problematic group of populations informally treated as the Ictalurus pricei complex. Several morphological characters separate the undescribed catfish populations (Sinaloa catfish) in the Culiacan River and San Lorenzo River basins from the Yaqui catfish (Ictalurus pricei), t...
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Citations
... However, very little is known about the Yaqui catfish; basic life history parameters such as survival, growth, and longevity have only recently been described in the USA (Stewart et al. 2017). A few studies have conducted phylogenetic analysis in Sonora, Mexico (Hendrickson et al. 2007, Castañeda-Rivera et al. 2014, Ballesteros-Córdova et al. 2016, Varela-Romero et al. 2020, Pérez-Rodríguez et al. 2023), but only 1 study assessed their distribution based on historical habitat conditions in the Yaqui River basin using landscape-scale historical data (Hafen et al. 2021). Varela-Romero et al. (2011) re viewed the historical records for the species in the Río Yaqui and Fuerte basins, and their findings indicate a reduction in Its historical distribution concomitant with a spread of channel catfish. ...
Acquiring data on rare and threatened species can be challenging, particularly in remote areas. Environmental DNA (eDNA) offers a less effort-intensive method for detecting species compared to physical fish sampling methods. In our study, we focused on the Endangered Yaqui catfish Ictalurus pricei , a freshwater fish endemic to the Sonoran desert in Arizona, USA, and Sonora, Mexico, and the non-native channel catfish I . punctatus . We developed and employed mitochondrial eDNA markers to sample 35 locations in the Yaqui River basin in Mexico and employed a hierarchical Bayesian formulation of a co-occurrence model to investigate the interactions between the species while accounting for the effects of covariates on species occupancy and detection. Our best model included the influence of channel catfish mitochondrial eDNA on detecting Yaqui catfish mitochondrial eDNA, and we found that channel catfish mitochondrial eDNA detection was negatively related with water temperature and elevation but positively related to substrate size. Yaqui catfish occupancy, as determined with mitochondrial eDNA detection, was best explained by stream permanence and the presence of forested areas, while channel catfish mitochondrial eDNA occurrences were also associated with stream permanence, as well as conifer and shrub-dominated landscapes. Non-native channel catfish mitochondrial eDNA was found in all but 5 locations where Yaqui catfish mitochondrial eDNA was detected, indicating a high likelihood of interaction and hybridization. This potential for hybridization poses a significant threat to the already Endangered Yaqui catfish, emphasizing the need to protect and secure remaining populations for their long-term survival.
... Informing Yaqui Catfish broodstock collection will require crafting a robust sampling design (i.e., probabilistic sampling) and the implementation of effective genetic markers. Our understanding of Yaqui Catfish genetics relies on convenient and opportunistic surveys that collected few samples (Varela-Romero et al. 2011;Castañeda-Rivera et al. 2014;Ballesteros-Córdova et al. 2015). Opportunistic captures also formed the 1990s broodstock (Jensen et al. 1996). ...
Objective
The Yaqui Catfish Ictalurus pricei , a species that is endemic to the southwestern United States and west‐central Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico, is extinct in the United States and extremely endangered in Mexico due to habitat loss and hybridization with nonnative Channel Catfish I. punctatus . To re‐establish populations in the United States, a binational program consisting of broodstock collection, fish propagation, stocking, and poststocking monitoring is necessary. This programmatic approach is encapsulated within a Conservation Propagation and Stocking Program (CPSP), which documents important recovery actions, such as genetic management, fish culture, stocking, and poststocking assessments. The focus of our work is to identify the optimal stocking strategy for Yaqui Catfish, thereby informing the framework of a CPSP for the species' recovery.
Methods
Our strategy involved simulating population growth using an age‐structured simulation model with varying stocking contribution rates, stocking densities, and stocking frequencies and incorporating these biological data with economic information within a utility function to quantify stocking costs.
Result
The optimal strategy requires releasing Yaqui Catfish at a density of 200 fish/ha every 5 years. This strategy excludes natural recruitment because historically, stocked Yaqui Catfish inhabited waters that were either too small or devoid of habitat to induce natural spawning. However, if larger waters or waters having appropriate habitats (e.g., interstitial spaces) are also stocked, it should increase natural recruitment, thereby (1) enabling populations to become self‐sustaining and (2) drastically reducing the reliance on hatcheries for stocking and salvage of declining populations.
Conclusion
Our results provide important stocking recommendations within a CPSP, emphasizing the need to build a broodstock before genetically pure Yaqui Catfish disappear. The successful implementation of the optimal stocking strategy requires multiple locations for stocking fish and is contingent on strengthening binational partnerships. This approach fills an important void in Yaqui Catfish reestablishment, helping to prime the successful recovery of this species.
... Conservation status for undescribed forms of this complex is basically unknown due to lack of survey information. Surveys should be accompanied by assessment of species status using thorough morphological and molecular studies of additional sequence information including nuclear loci (Castañeda-Rivera et al. 2014;Ballesteros-Córdova et al. 2016). The upper San Pedro-Mezquital basin deserves special conservation attention because it harbors at least one undescribed species of the I. pricei complex and is the last watercourse of the Pacific versant to remain undammed (WWF 2010). ...
... Conservation status for undescribed forms of this complex is basically unknown due to lack of survey information. Surveys should be accompanied by assessment of species status using thorough morphological and molecular studies of additional sequence information including nuclear loci (Castañeda-Rivera et al. 2014;Ballesteros-Córdova et al. 2016). The upper San Pedro-Mezquital basin deserves special conservation attention because it harbors at least one undescribed species of the I. pricei complex and is the last watercourse of the Pacific versant to remain undammed (WWF 2010). ...
... Recently, molecular evidence based on cytochrome b (Varela-Romero, 2007;Varela-Romero, Ballesteros-Córdova, Ruiz-Campos, Sánchez-Gonzáles, & Brooks, in press), the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (Castañeda-Rivera, Grijalva-Chon, Gutiérrez-Millán, Ruiz-Campos, & Varela-Romero et al., 2014) and the sequencing of four geographical mitogenome haplotypes of Yaqui catfish and Sinaloan catfish (Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River basins) has placed the geographical haplotypes of I. pricei within a clade of specific identity. This identity is close to Sinaloan catfish haplotypes, thus supporting the hypothesis that Sinaloan catfish are a distinct evolutionary unit (Ballesteros-Córdova et al., 2015). ...
... The morphological characters described above support the hypothesis of the present study, which stipulates that the Ictalurus sp. of the Culiacán River basin (Humaya and Tamazula sub-basins) represents a different form to the nominal species Ictalurus pricei of the Yaqui River basin, as already confirmed by genetic analysis undertaken using mitochondrial DNA (Ballesteros-Córdova et al., 2015;Castañeda-Rivera et al., 2014;Varela-Romero, 2007;Varela-Romero et al., 2011;Varela-Romero, et al., in press). In this context, the Ictalurus sp. ...
Introduction: Morphotypes of native catfish of the genus Ictalurus (Siluriformes: Ictaluridae) are known to occur in allopatry in the northern Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico, with only the Yaqui catfish (Ictalurus pricei) taxonomically described. Recent genetic analysis of these morphotypes has revealed the monophyly of the I. pricei complex, which indicates Ictalurus sp. from the Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River basins as its nearest genetic relative and recognizes as an evolutionarily significant unit the Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River morphotypes. Objective: To compare the meristic and morphometric characteristics of the catfish of the Culiacán River basin with its nearest genetic relative, the Yaqui catfish, in order to determine the presence of distinctive morphological characters that support genetic evidence previously reported for these morphotypes. Methods: Catfish specimens were collected during various field expeditions (1990-2012) to remote sites of the Sierra Madre Occidental and conducted in the Yaqui River and Culiacán River basins with the purpose of morphological comparison. Forty-five morphological characters (40 morphometric and five meristic) were examined in 76 adult specimens-52 Ictalurus sp. and 24 Ictalurus pricei. Three groups were subject to a discriminant function analysis (DFA), including two Ictalurus sp. groups from the Humaya River and Tamazula River sub-basins, representing the Culiacán River basin, and one I. pricei group representing the Yaqui River basin. The standardized measurements and meristic data of the catfish morphotypes were compared by means of DFA. Results: The DFA revealed 12 characters to be significantly different (P < 0.01) among the groups compared. The morphological characters separating the Ictalurus sp. (Culiacán River basin) from the Yaqui catfish were associated with lower anal, pelvic and pectoral fin ray numbers, shorter head and predorsal lengths, shorter longest lateral barbel and longest dorsal ray lengths and a narrower premaxilar dentary plate; and finally longer distances in Ictalurus sp. for dorsal-fin origin to last anal-fin ray base and dorsal-fin origin to posterior end of the adipose fin base. The standardized coefficients for canonical variables 1 and 2 accounted for 85.6 % and 14.4 % of the total variation, respectively. Conclusions: The distinctive morphological characters of the Ictalurus sp. found in the Culiacán River basin, combined with the known mitochondrial evidence for this morphotype, identify it as an evolutionarily significant unit that requires description as a new species based on taxonomical protocols.
... The geographical isolation of the Culiacán River catfish and its consequent differentiation could be related to various orographic events and episodic aridity during the Miocene which, combined with pluvial cycles in the Pleistocene, resulted in the separation of the different hydrological drainages in the SMO (Schönhuth, Doadrio, & Mayden, 2006;Schönhuth et al., 2011Schönhuth et al., , 2014Smith et al., 2002). This tectonic-climatic event has been also proposed as the main causal factor of the speciation of other fish genera in the SMO, such as Gila (Schönhuth et al., 2014), Codoma (Schönhuth, Lozano-Vilano, Perdices, Espinosa, & Mayden, 2015) and Catostomus Recently, molecular evidence based on cytochrome b (Varela-Romero, 2007;Varela-Romero, Ballesteros-Córdova, Ruiz-Campos, Sánchez-Gonzáles, & Brooks, in press), the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (Castañeda-Rivera, Grijalva-Chon, Gutiérrez-Millán, Ruiz-Campos, & Varela-Romero et al., 2014) and the sequencing of four geographical mitogenome haplotypes of Yaqui catfish and Sinaloan catfish (Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River basins) has placed the geographical haplotypes of I. pricei within a clade of specific identity. This identity is close to Sinaloan catfish haplotypes, thus supporting the hypothesis that Sinaloan catfish are a distinct evolutionary unit (Ballesteros-Córdova et al., 2015). ...
... The morphological characters described above support the hypothesis of the present study, which stipulates that the Ictalurus sp. of the Culiacán River basin (Humaya and Tamazula sub-basins) represents a different form to the nominal species Ictalurus pricei of the Yaqui River basin, as already confirmed by genetic analysis undertaken using mitochondrial DNA (Ballesteros-Córdova et al., 2015;Castañeda-Rivera et al., 2014;Varela-Romero, 2007;Varela-Romero et al., 2011;Varela-Romero, et al., in press). In this context, the Ictalurus sp. ...
Introduction:
Morphotypes of native catfish of the genus Ictalurus (Siluriformes: Ictaluridae) are known to occur in allopatry in the northern Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico, with only the Yaqui catfish (Ictalurus pricei) taxonomically described. Recent genetic analysis of these morphotypes has revealed the monophyly of the I. pricei complex, which indicates Ictalurus sp. from the Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River basins as its nearest genetic relative and recognizes as an evolutionarily significant unit the Culiacán River and San Lorenzo River morphotypes.
Objective:
To compare the meristic and morphometric characteristics of the catfish of the Culiacán River basin with its nearest genetic relative, the Yaqui catfish, in order to determine the presence of distinctive morphological characters that support genetic evidence previously reported for these morphotypes.
Methods:
Catfish specimens were collected during various field expeditions (1990-2012) to remote sites of the Sierra Madre Occidental and conducted in the Yaqui River and Culiacán River basins with the purpose of morphological comparison. Forty-five morphological characters (40 morphometric and five meristic) were examined in 76 adult specimens - 52 Ictalurus sp. and 24 Ictalurus pricei. Three groups were subject to a discriminant function analysis (DFA), including two Ictalurus sp. groups from the Humaya River and Tamazula River sub-basins, representing the Culiacán River basin, and one I. pricei group representing the Yaqui River basin. The standardized measurements and meristic data of the catfish morphotypes were compared by means of DFA.
Results:
The DFA revealed 12 characters to be significantly different (P< 0.01) among the groups compared. The morphological characters separating the Ictalurus sp. (Culiacán River basin) from the Yaqui catfish were associated with lower anal, pelvic and pectoral fin ray numbers, shorter head and predorsal lengths, shorter longest lateral barbel and longest dorsal ray lengths and a narrower premaxilar dentary plate; and finally longer distances in Ictalurus sp. for dorsal-fin origin to last anal-fin ray base and dorsal-fin origin to posterior end of the adipose fin base. The standardized coefficients for canonical variables 1 and 2 accounted for 85.6 % and 14.4 % of the total variation, respectively.
Conclusions:
The distinctive morphological characters of the Ictalurus sp. found in the Culiacán River basin, combined with the known mitochondrial evidence for this morphotype, identify it as an evolutionarily significant unit that requires description as a new species based on taxonomical protocols.
... The recent discovery of new fish taxa in the Culiacán River basin in the SMO (Mayden et al., 2010;Schönhuth et al., 2011;Varela-Romero et al., 2011;Castañeda-Rivera et al., 2014;Ruiz-Campos et al., 2016) allowed the opportunity to compare southern populations related to Gila minacae, with respect to a combination of morphometric, meristic and molecular-genetic methods. The evidence of high molecular divergence within G. minacae populations suggests that this nominal taxon represents a complex of species. ...
... Research on the diversity of freshwater fishes in the SMO allowed its recognition as an important promoter of radiation and vicariance events for different groups of fish (Miller & Smith, 1986). Recent explorations of drainages in the SMO recorded the presence of undescribed forms belonging to the families Salmonidae (Mayden et al., 2010), Catostomidae , Ictaluridae Castañeda-Rivera et al., 2014) and Cyprinidae (Schönhuth et al., 2011(Schönhuth et al., , 2014Ballesteros-Córdova et al., 2019) in the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango. ...
A morphological characterization is performed within the Gila minacae complex and congeneric species from the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico. A discriminant function analysis based on 33 morphometric and six meristic characters applied to 209 specimens revealed 15 body characters to be significantly different among the taxa compared. Southern populations inhabiting the Fuerte, Sinaloa and Culiacán River basins are morphologically distinct from Gila minacae populations from the Yaqui River basin and from remaining studied species. Southern populations have a deeper body and lower counts of gill rakers, dorsal-fin rays, and lateral line scales than G. minacae from the Yaqui River basin. Such differences suggest the presence of at least two species within the Gila minacae species complex.
... Basic life history parameters such as survival and growth rates, age at first reproduction, and longevity of the species are unknown. Few studies describe the phylogenetic analysis of the I. pricei complex in Sonora, Mexico (Castaneda-Rivera et al., 2014;Ballesteros-Cordova et al., 2015), and a single aquaculture-based study evaluating the performance of captive-reared Yaqui catfish fingerlings was published in the US (Reilly and Lochmann, 2000). ...
Data describing population abundance, survival, and recruitment informs species conservation status and conservation actions. Acquiring these data remains challenging for rare and endangered species, especially freshwater fish, with ~37% threatened or extinct. The absence of data risks inaction, ineptness and ignorance that can contaminate conservation decisions to the species detriment. The solution is obvious: ensure credible data underpin species conservation. We focus on Yaqui catfish (Ictalurus pricei), an endangered, freshwater endemic to the Sonoran desert (Arizona, US and Sonora, Mexico). Our method incorporates mark-recapture data, coupled with hierarchical Bayesian state-space formulations of the Cormack-Jolly Seber models and Jolly-Seber models, to quantify species growth, survival probability, recruitment probability, abundance and trends for the US population. Yaqui catfish growth matched other Ictalurid species. Population recruitment is essentially zero (<0.01%) and annual survival high (>70–75%). Overall, the US Yaqui catfish population declined by 15% per year (λ=0.85). Remaining catfish represent remnants of stocked progeny from the 1990s (age of 19–21years), with US extinction predicted by 2018. A pulse of conservation activity followed by 20years of unsuccessful management resulted in the US population collapsing while habitat degradation and introgression from non-native fish threaten most populations in Mexico. Now approaching global extinction, saving Yaqui catfish requires collaboration between Mexican and US biologists to establish species status in Mexico, hatchery cultivation, habitat protection, habitat restoration and appropriate monitoring. Work herein springboards recent conservation efforts to secure this species.
... Basic life history parameters such as survival and growth rates, age at first reproduction, and longevity of the species are unknown. Few studies describe the phylogenetic analysis of the I. pricei complex in Sonora, Mexico (Castaneda-Rivera et al., 2014;Ballesteros-Cordova et al., 2015), and a single aquaculture-based study evaluating the performance of captive-reared Yaqui catfish fingerlings was published in the US (Reilly and Lochmann, 2000). ...
Data describing population abundance, survival, and recruitment informs species conservation status and conservation actions. Acquiring these data remains challenging for rare and endangered species, especially freshwater fish, with ~37% threatened or extinct. The absence of data risks inaction, ineptness and ignorance that can contaminate conservation decisions to the species detriment. The solution is obvious: ensure credible data underpin species conservation. We focus on Yaqui catfish (Ictalurus pricei), an endangered, freshwater endemic to the Sonoran desert (Arizona, US and Sonora, Mexico). Our method incorporates mark-recapture data, coupled with hierarchical Bayesian state-space formulations of the Cormack-Jolly Seber models and Jolly-Seber models, to quantify species growth, survival probability, recruitment probability, abundance and trends for the US population. Yaqui catfish growth matched other Ictalurid species. Population recruitment is essentially zero (< 0.01%) and annual survival high (> 70–75%). Overall, the US Yaqui catfish population declined by 15% per year (λ=0.85). Remaining catfish represent remnants of stocked progeny from the 1990s (age of 19-21 yrs), with US extinction predicted by 2018. A pulse of conservation activity followed by 20 years of unsuccessful management resulted in the US population collapsing while habitat degradation and introgression from non-native fish threaten most populations in Mexico. Now approaching global extinction, saving Yaqui catfish requires collaboration between Mexican and US biologists to establish species status in Mexico, hatchery cultivation, habitat protection, habitat restoration and appropriate monitoring. Work herein springboards recent conservation efforts to secure this species.
... The vast and unexplored Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico (SMO) is one of the most important areas of radiation and speciation of the family Salmonidae in North America (Mayden et al., 2010) and possibly of other complexes of species belonging to the families Cyprinidae (Schonhuth et al., 2011;, Catostomidae (Siebert & Minckley, 1986) and Ictaluridae (Castañeda-Rivera, Grijalva-Chon, Gutiérrez-Millán, Ruiz-Campos & Varela-Romero, 2014;Varela-Romero, Hendrickson, Yepiz-Plascencia, Brooks, & Neely, 2011). ...
