19 July 2016: A University of Canberra fish and ecology expert is working to prevent the extinction of a small population of stunning Australian native rainbowfish in northern Queensland and public donations are helping his campaign.
Research fellow with the University’s Institute for Applied Ecology Dr Peter Unmack specialises in fish, ecology and genetics and has been studying the rainbowfishes of the Running River north-west of Townsville.
“The Running River Rainbowfish are small, measuring up to 7 centimetres long, and they are only found in one 13 kilometre section of the river,” Dr Unmack said.
“We discovered almost by accident that their limited range is being encroached on by an introduced neighbouring Eastern Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia splendida) species and they appear to be inter-breeding themselves into extinction in the wild.”
Dr Unmack and his colleagues collected more than 100 of the fish, to create a captive insurance population, but needed to confirm that they were genetically pure Running River Rainbowfish before breeding with them.
Dr Unmack and his team has been working with Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) to genetically test the captive fish, to ensure the population is free from hybrids. DArT are based in the Institute for Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra.
“It an incredible coincidence that we actually caught these two species in the act at this exact time. Five years ago we didn’t have access to the tools to do the genetic work on the scale that we need, and five years from now we wouldn’t expect to find any of the pure Running River Rainbowfish left,” Dr Unmack said.
Public donations, including the support of the Australian New Guinea Fishes Association and aquarist networks in Australia and overseas, through the University of Canberra Foundation have allowed some captive fish to be genetically tested so that a pure breeding population has now been established.
“These fish are easy to breed up and because of their popularity with fish keepers, we should be able to conserve them if we’ve acted in time and caught enough pure specimens.”
Further donations via the UC Foundation will ensure that Dr Unmack’s entire insurance population of Running River Rainbowfish can be genetically tested.
- Dr Unmack is available for interview.
Contact the University of Canberra media team:
Marcus Butler: 0438 447 810
Claudia Doman: 0408 826 362