Biology undergraduates publish in peer-reviewed journal

Biology undergraduates publish in peer-reviewed journal

Biology undergraduates Justin Olson, Jenae Olson and Rachel Walsh have had their research findings receive final acceptance for publication by the North American Journal of Fisheries Management. The research, mentored by Biosciences faculty Brian Wisenden, was Justin’s senior year project for the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology emphasis within the Biology major. The project experimentally demonstrated that groups of predator-naive fish can be trained on a commercial scale to recognize and fear a novel predator. This method can be used by fisheries managers to increase the survival rate of any program that stocks hatchery-reared fish into natural water bodies. The title of their article is:

Olson JA, Olson JM, Walsh RE, Wisenden BD. 2011. A Method to Train Groups of Predator-Naïve Fish to Recognize and Respond to Predators When Released into the Natural Environment. NAJFM in press.

Justin Olson and Jenae Olson (no relation) presented these data at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society meeting in July, convened at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, Ind.