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Morphological asymmetry of insular freshwater populations of threespine stickleback

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Abstract

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), random deviations from perfect symmetry in a bilateral organism, has been widely used as a proxy for developmental instability in stressed populations. In order to test the utility of FA of resident freshwater threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as a biomonitoring tool for contaminated sites, we compared levels of asymmetry of seven morphological traits of threespine stickleback collected from lakes at three islands with a history of military contamination and three islands with no military history, in the Aleutian Archipelago, Alaska. Traits examined include eye diameter, operculum width, pectoral fin ray number, pectoral fin width, lateral plate number, lateral plate length, and pelvic spine length. All morphometric traits demonstrated some degree of FA or directional asymmetry (DA), but the military history of a lake was not a predictor of the degree or type of asymmetry. Overall, the patterns of asymmetry were similar for all traits, irrespective of military contamination at a lake. Our results demonstrate that the suite of threespine stickleback traits measured are not suitable for examination of FA as a proxy for aquatic pollution in this region. DA also does not appear to be suitable as an indicator of aquatic pollution, but may instead be driven by local ecological factors such as predation.

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Acknowledgments

Invaluable logistical support was provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, especially from J. Williams, V. Byrd, and L. Spitler and the crew of the research vessel the M/V Tiglax: Capt. K. Bell, Capt. W. Pepper, D. Erickson, J. Faris, R. Lee, E. Nelson, and A. Velsko. We thank R. Kaler, S. Freeman, I. Jones, R. Bucheit, J. Waryzboch, A. Bond, R. Buxton, T. Danelsko, K. Morrison, M. Mclintook, G. Thomspon, L. Slater, S. Ebbert, S. Christy, and H. Weigner for assistance with field collections. We thank B. Rhodes for assistance with fish measurements. We thank R. Kaler and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback and comments that greatly improved an earlier draft of this manuscript. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM103395. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. All collections during this study were done in accordance with the University of Alaska Anchorage Animal Care and Use Committee (protocols 2004vonHi1, 2007vonHi1, and 159870–11) and were authorized by permits from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (SF2006-017, SF2006-018, SF2009-016, and SF2009-018).

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA

    Leah A. Kenney & Frank A. von Hippel

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  1. Leah A. Kenney
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  2. Frank A. von Hippel
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Correspondence to Leah A. Kenney.

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Kenney, L.A., von Hippel, F.A. Morphological asymmetry of insular freshwater populations of threespine stickleback. Environ Biol Fish 97, 225–232 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-013-0145-3

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