USFWS Pacific Southwest Region
Midway between Las Vegas and Death Valley, the Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge is beautiful in a way that, in my still-limited experience, compares to no other place on earth. Ash Meadows is in the desert, and yet Ash Meadows has water, lots of it.
Zenhikers/Flickr
That water comes from deep aquifers, and it flows through the desert in colors you thirst for later.
Flyfarther79/Flickr
The refuge served as an oasis for people native to the region. Now it's home to a couple dozen species that live only in Ash Meadows. One of those species is the Devil's Hole Pupfish. The park has other groups of pupfish, but the Devil's Hole Pupfish lives only in Devil's Hole, in the middle of Ash Meadows, in a hole so deep that no one has ever reached the bottom of it.
In that hole, all year round, swims the tiny Devil's Hole Pupfish; in spring the males turn bright blue and fight for mates.
High Country News
Twice a year, the National Park Service sends divers into Devil's Hole to count the pupfish.
Ken Lund/Flickr
I've seen them emerge from the pool calling out the numbers of fish they counted -- "28!" or "40!" -- and then slip back under the water.
Sarah Goodyear
Hillary Rosner writes in Wired this week that the latest count, from September, found 75 Devil's Hole Pupfish. That's down by half from recent years, but still twice the nadir of 2006. Scientists have been keeping a backup collection of the species in a separate tank, just in case. And that's where the story gets weird. Rosner writes:
Somehow a few pupfish of a different species managed to infiltrate the refuge and—to put it politely—their DNA quickly spread through the population. After about half a decade, every fish in the pool was descended from the invaders, who gave their offspring telltale genes and an extra set of fins. Wildlife officials moved all the hybrids to a hatchery, where, unlike captive Devils Hole pupfish, they couldn't stop making babies. "There were floor-to-ceiling tanks of these hybrid fish," says Andy Martin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who led the research into the hybrids' DNA. "This was a population that had been sputtering away, and now it was going like mad."
To Martin, the fact that an influx of new genes caused a population explosion suggested what was wrong: "genetic load," a glut of defective DNA that accumulates in a small population. On the upside, that diagnosis suggests a cure—a way to save the species. Martin has a plan to bring the fish back from the brink. But to the kind of people who have battled extinctions in the past, his solution is heresy.
It turns out that the way to save the Devil's Hole Pupfish is to change them. If they don't change, if they just keep fighting for mates and breeding within their own small population under the Nevada desert, the Devil's Hole Pupfish could disappear. For me, that's a metaphor for what happens when political ecosystems prejudice purity over churn and orthodoxy over growth.
P.S. In a way, it doesn't matter if the little blue critters continue life on earth. Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist at Death Valley National Park, who watches over them, told me, "This species is considered a 'bellwether' species to future global warming/climate change." I like that idea. The Devil's Hole Pupfish exist for reasons we don't fully understand, but from the fact that they exist, we learn something about our planet is doing. The pupfish know how nature is handling climate change, for instance. Amazingly, they also know when the ground is shaking. Wilson says the water in Devil's Hole sloshes when the ground shakes far away, like in Haiti or Japan. We don't need the pupfish to tell us that, not with our modern equipment in place, but I love that they do. Below, video of what happened in Devil's Hole during an earthquake in Baja California on April 4, 2010. Let it play -- it takes a bit to get going.
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Mercy the desert can be so frickin' beautiful. I have been to Vegas a few times and sunrise is only comparable to sunset. The colors pop like they are alive.
Thanks a bunch , now I want to go back and see all these things and skip the casino.However ...
I find it disgusting that you had to toss in " For me, that's a metaphor for what happens when political ecosystems prejudice purity over churn and orthodoxy over growth."
Why stop and smell the roses if it just leads you back to the manure pile?
Just curious -- is it because I included politics at all, or because of what I said about politics?
It is because I am at heart a romantic and loath mixing harsh reality with "moments of Zen"?
I get that. Maybe I can put that part in "Paul S. Campbell" parentheses.
Whatever. Thanks for your time.
Not sure I follow how an infiltration of pupfish of a different species can be construed as Global Warming? Sounds more like an invasive species to me. Perhaps you should get the ecologist show to explain?
The invasive species is presumably an unrelated issue. Fish in general - but especially fish in isolated environments like this - are especially sensitive to climate change for a number of reasons. The water they live in is usually at a pretty stable temperature (water is reluctant to gain or lose heat energy), so as the pools warm, this may have an effect on the pupfish's lifecycle, since fish are of course cold-blooded and cannot regulate their metabolism like us endotherms do. Warming water will also tend to hold more gasses and minerals in solution; most significantly, as CO2 in the atmosphere increases, dissolved CO2 in the water will as well, which in turn causes the water's pH to drop as carbonic acid forms. All of these factors can have all kinds of nasty effects, especially on species that have been living in an otherwise essentially unchanging environment for millenia.
I thought it was a great mixture of nature and political observation. That may be because I do the same thing now and then on my own blog.
I did not know that about the earthquake effects. I need to know all about that NAO! ...
I guess what you are trying to say is the GOP is isolated like a Devil's Hole Pupfish. They have no other way but to go down.
"Somehow a few pupfish of a different species managed to infiltrate the refuge and—to put it politely—their DNA quickly spread through the population. After about half a decade, every fish in the pool was descended from the invaders, who gave their offspring telltale genes and an extra set of fins."
Do we know for sure that they didn't mutate on their own, in order to evolve and avoid extinction? Where would the invader pupfish have come from? Did they walk across the desert?
As a guess, they may have been placed there by some other person who wished to supply extra fish to supplement the declining local population. Such misguided but well-intentioned actions occur all the time. I don't know how well protected the pool is, so I may easily be wrong.
On the other hand, it is probably a good bet that the geneticists who are monitoring the pupfish can distinguish between the emergence of a new mutation and the introduction of a related species that can produce hybrids.
I'd be curious to know the answer as well, but whatever it is, pretty sure "walking there" is low on the list of possibilities - and a spontaneous and total speciation event lower still. There are at least three species of pupfish in the same area, so it could have been deliberate or accidental transplantation, maybe infiltration through some underground waterway, maybe even some Fortean whirlwind coming through the area and flinging pupfish or their roe around...
My understanding is that a different species/subspecies was introduced. In nature, of course, there is gene flow between the small isolated pools of pupfish. That would happen, probably, during ice ages when conditions change and these low spots become wide shallow lakes, connecting all the pools. Then the pupfish population gets a total genetic overhaul. Then the "playa lake" goes away and the little populations get separated and start to evolve along their own path again for several thousand years.
Meanwhile, it is probably possible for pupfish to get from hole to hole via the usual mechanisms fish use to disperse. Killifish (pupfish are killifish) are widespread, so they do get around. Since they lay eggs, their eggs can likely hitch rides on waterfowl.
The most likely cause of this is people being bad (with good intentions, bla bla bla)... everyone should really know by now that you don't carry around animals and introduce them willy nilly. Anybody remember the Raccoon Rabies Epidemic in the Eastern Woodlands 20 years ago? That was caused by someone helpfully moving Southwestern raccoons to Arkansas because they had done shot out all the local critters.
IN most, if not all, states, and federally, there are numerous laws and regulations prohibiting the transport of animals for this reason. Increasingly you can't even transport firewood beyond a certain distance, as "firewood" = habitat for fungi and various other life forms.
I am perhaps unreasonably tickled that Death Valley has its own aquatic ecologist.
We were when we met him -- world's most amazing job, and an incredibly smart, generous guy.
Thank you for bringing attention to Ash Meadows. It's one of the best winter destinations from LA. Never crowed. Always peaceful.
Thank you for this brief respite, I've been to Vegas, but never got this far out in the desert. And contrary to Paul S., I get the metaphor and say that we can only hope.
Paul, I too tend toward the romantic, but, unfortunately sometimes shyt happens...
But yes. There are practical radicals and purist radicals. The practical radicals are necessary b/c they allow us to push the envelope. The purist radicals, on the other hand, are stagnant ideologues whose focus tends towards enumerating the sins of everyone else and almost never about the intrinsic value of whatever concept they claim to treasure.
Those blue pupfish are really pretty! I had no idea!
It makes you wonder though, where the Pupfish would be without any human intervention. Where would some other species would be, in fact.
We try to save something from extinction, is it for the greater good, or is it because we feel somewhat guilty for our handprint on the world that is possibly accelerating the dying out of certain species? It's hard to say, with or with our our presence life truly does go on.
Maybe the Pupfish DNA anomaly is just another aspect of Darwinism at work.
I'm in agreement, let nature take it's course.
http://www.examiner.com/article/one-out-of-ten-species-could-be-extinct-by-2100-due-to-climate-change
We humans have stopped letting nature take its course ever since we became agrarian.
"Let them go Bankrupt!"
This is just my thinking out loud. But have the biologists tested the waters for radioactivity? Vegas has a lot of water underneath the city, but they cannot use it because it is contaminated from the nuclear testing.
I know certain parts of Nevada's water has quite a bit of arsenic in it.
Here's a bit on radioactivity.
http://www.sott.net/article/196805-Nuclear-Scars-Tainted-water-runs-beneath-Nevada-desert
and death valley:
http://beforeitsnews.com/environment/2010/06/deadlier-death-valley-radioactive-water-to-gush-from-devils-hole-in-15000-years-says-byu-study-73013.html
but that's not for a while yet. :)
It's an interesting theory though. Worth exploring, especially if there's indications of radioactive contamination in the future.
My guess is that a population explosion sans predation leads to survival of both beneficial and non-beneficial mutants which would normally be thinned out by selective breeding and predetors. I think radioactivity usually disrupts the DNA chain in ways that cause deformaties rather than simple variation.(I slept at a holiday inn express)
Note: recessive genes taking command is probably not a mutation , sorry about that.
I went to a hot springs in Nevada--water temp about 104 degrees and to my amazement little fish swimming around not bothered by this temp. It was near a small town and amazement Gerlach springs had these little guys in the spring. I had to get out after 20 minutes or so to cool off but these little fish lived there. I agree political comments that exposes where this place is bothers me. These places should not be made know on National TV. Comment is true but area secrecy is what bothers me.
Cool piece! Those fishies are purtty! (I don't feel like using my brain to talk about science or politics today!!!)
Ash Meadows is absolutely beautiful, serene oasis in the middle of the desert.. I was there several years ago.. before the mutations appeared. The deep pond that we were allowed to see was covered with thick steel bars... I suppose it could have been contaminated by "alien fish." However the security surrounding that pit of water was such that the fish were very difficult to even see in the darkness. I personally think it was the inbreeding that caused the mutations...
Psst, the word is "bellwether" and it has nothing to do with meteorology...
Ack! You're so right. It's the goat. Thank you for saving me.
Thank you for this piece, Laura. I appreciate it both metaphorically and the biologically. It looks like an amazing place to visit. That's one more thing to add to the itinerary when we do our cross-country jaunt in a few years.
HMMM- I wonder how the "EVOLUTION-DENIERS" on the GOP tea party science committee, and their ILK WILL EXPLAIN THS? fiction made up by the scientific industrail conspiracy complex? fiction concocted by the liberal media, and RACHEL MADDOW- to advance her left wing media conspiracy agenda? of course- we all believe in some higher power; but SCIENTIFIC PROOF, AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, AND TECHNOLOGY IS WHAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND. ( well not quite exactly- the world rotates by other means)- but you get my point.. HOW DO THE CREATIONISTS explain this phenomena? a sign of the MAYAN APOCALYPSE? SENT BY GOD ? ( i bet those little fishies taste real good breaded, and pan fried in butter? ( IM JOKING.) BUT SERIOUSLY.. happy thanksgiving to you all!
Wow! That video of Devil's Hole was incredible. It looked like an underground tsunami. You could see all the water disappear and then return in a crashing wave--TSUNAMI! Where did these lil pups hang-out when all the water went to the other side?
One problem with turning around our changing climate is that it always falls into a cost over benefit analysis. This makes the case easy for the nay-sayers to underestimate the benefits, which over states the costs.
This story sounds to me like a metaphor for the republican party. Change/adapt or die. If the 2012 election did not send this warning loud and clear then there will be that many fewer republicans in the future and the party itself might be replaced by some more vigorous politial entity whose goals and ideals will be more attractive to future electorates.
I totally get it. It's a paradigm shift that could only happen with the addition of 'new blood' or new ideas, new ways of thinking. Celebrate diversity as it invigorates the system.
i'm not a scientist but i can tell you that the southwest is riddled with caverns and such. as there is a lot of water in the area and other species nearby, it's quite possible that an earthquake or erosion has allowed a combining of two aquafers and hence there species. also, on a political level, if republicans were in charge of this project all the species would be dead so that the water could be diverted to agribusiness. just sayin'.
Tracking the genetics of nearby populations and comparing them to the Devil's Hole pupfish is pretty easy once the DNA has been sampled and sequenced. There's a paper on the connectivity of these holes but I haven't read it yet. Could confirm they're connected.
The film shows a dramatic water level movement, probably analogous to what happened off Japan last year. Would force water exchanges in pools which have connections too.
BTY warm water holds less gasses in solution than cold water, same with added salts - less gasses in solution, called "salting out" and these pools are carbonate-waters so they're already hard water and if they warm more then they will have less oxygen. I imagine they're pretty stable in temperature if they flow from deep underground.
In the early 80's I spent a few months in the dry lands out west. I read Edward Abbey. One of those crazy great things young people do. It's good to see the photos brings flash backs of a great time in my life. I did not have a TV for about 15 years and they where the best years 0of my life.