The ecology of Atlantic white cedar wetlands: a community profile

This monograph on the ecology of Atlantic white cedar wetlands is one of a series of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service profiles of important freshwater wetland ecosystems of the United States. The purpose of the profile is to describe the extent, components, functioning, history, and treatment of these wetlands. It is intended to provide a useful reference to relevant scientific information and a synthesis of the available literature. The world range of Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) is limited to a ribbon of freshwater wetlands within 200 km of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, extending from mid-Maine to mid-Florida and Mississippi. Often in inaccessible sites and difficult to traverse, cedar wetlands contain distinctive suites of plant species. Highly valued as commercial timber since the early days of European colonization of the continent, the cedar and its habitat are rapidly disappearing. This profile describes the Atlantic white cedar and the bogs and swamps it dominates or codominates throughout its range, discussing interrelationships with other habitats, putative origins and migration patterns, substrate biogeochemistry, associated plant and animal species (with attention to those that are rare, endangered, or threatened regionally or nationally), and impacts of both natural and anthropogenic disturbance. Research needs for each area are outlined. Chapters are devoted to the practices and problems of harvest and management, and to an examination of a large preserve recently acquired by the USFWS, the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930): Founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930) became the founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, in 1919 without the benefit of a college education. An inquisitive and ambitious man, he began his career in the newspaper business and was introduced to commercial fisheries when he joined the U.S. Fish Commission (USFC) in 1895 as a clerk, and he was soon promoted to a “Field Agent” in the Division of Statistics, Washington, D.C. During the next 17 years, Cobb surveyed commercial fisheries from Maine to Florida, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska for the USFC and its successor, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. In 1913, he became editor of the prominent west coast trade magazine, Pacific Fisherman, of Seattle, Wash., where he became known as a leading expert on the fisheries of the Pacific Northwest. He soon joined the campaign, led by his employer, to establish the nation’s first fisheries school at the University of Washington. After a brief interlude (1917–1918) with the Alaska Packers Association in San Francisco, Calif., he was chosen as the School’s founding director in 1919. Reflecting his experience and mindset, as well as the University’s apparent initial desire, Cobb established the College of Fisheries primarily as a training ground for those interested in applied aspects of the commercial fishing industry. Cobb attracted sufficient students, was a vigorous spokesman for the College, and had ambitions plans for expansion of the school’s faculty and facilities. He became aware that the College was not held in high esteem by his faculty colleagues or by the University administration because of the school’s failure to emphasize scholastic achievement, and he attempted to correct this deficiency. Cobb became ill with heart problems in 1929 and died on 13 January 1930. The University soon thereafter dissolved the College and dismissed all but one of its faculty. A Department of Fisheries, in the College of Science, was then established in 1930 and was led by William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), who emphasized basic science and fishery biology. The latter format continues to the present in the Department’s successor, The School of Aquatic Fisheries and Science.

Kumataro Ito, Japanese Artist on Board the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Steamer Albatross During the Philippine Expedition, 1907–1910

Kumataro Ito produced hundreds of beautiful color paintings of fishes and invertebrates during and after the 1907-10 Philippine Expeditin of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Steamer Albatross. The paintings are housed in the files of the Divisions of Fishes and Mollusks, United States National Museum of Natural History, and Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. Few of those paintings have been published in color, but many have been publishes in black and white. Two years after the expedition, Ito came to Washington, D.C., in 1912 for an extended period to render final paintings based on preliminary color sketches made during the expedition. He did not completly render all the sketches during his stay, probably because he was asked to produced a large number of black-and-white illustrations of Philippine fishes, and a few of North American fishes. Most of the black-and-white illustrations have been published. Few publications containing Ito's Philippine and North American illustrations have acknowledged him. The very little that is known about Ito's life is discussed, examples of his black-and-white and colored fish paintings are reproduced, and his previously unacknowledged illustrations in various publications are herein acknowledged. Another Japanese artist, Yasui, about whom almost nothing is known, joined the Albatross during Ito's second tour on board the ship. It appears, with few exceptions, that Yasui produced only preliminary color sketches of fishes, which, if rendered as final paintings, were done by Ito.

Response of fishes to the underwater D.C. field

Response to external electric field (D. C.) of three different varieties of fish namely Puntius ticto, Heteropneustis fossilis and Tilapia mossambica having different anatomical and behavioural characteristics were studied. Clearly distinguished reactions occurred one after another m all the varieties of fish with the increase in field intensity with minor specific variations. These reactions can be broadly classified into initial start (first reaction), forced swimming (galvanotaxis), slackening of body muscle (galvanonarcosis) and state of muscular rigidity (tetanus). The orientation of the organism (projection of nervous element) to the surrounding field has been found to have important bearing on the behaviour reactions. Clearly differentiated anodic taxis and true narcosis set in when fish body axis was parallel to the lines of current conduction. But with greater angle between the body axis and the current lines, fish did not show well marked reactions. Fish body, when perpendicular to current lines responded for anodic curvature and off balance swimming followed by tetanus.