Fishy chat-up lines and underwater love among Arctic char

Scientists in Galway are attempting to eavesdrop on the sounds Arctic char make during courtship in the hope of protecting this threatened fish

Irish Times, 1 May 2014

What does the fish say? New research at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) aims to shed light on just how vocal a unique Irish fish is. Biologists hope to discover whether Arctic char, a deepwater inhabitant of Irish lakes, vocalise. during courtship and spawning.

Researchers hope that, by recording char in the lab, they can use its unique call to pinpoint where it spawns in lakes in the hope of offering it better protection.

About 700 species of bony fish are known to vocalise. Most do this by contracting their swim bladder to produce pulsating drum-like calls. In many species, sound is produced by males as they compete with each other and try to attract mates.

Sound travels farther underwater than light, says PhD researcher Marta Bolgan, and it doesn’t dissipate as quickly as chemical signals, making it a logical communication medium for fish. But fish acoustics are poorly understood compared with those of aquatic mammals such as whales and dolphins, and freshwater fish are the least-studied of all.

At a fish farm in Galway, Bolgan has recorded what seem to be sounds produced by Arctic char. She believes these may be the first Arctic char vocalisations recorded by scientists. Bolgan now hopes to record the species spawning in the lab to confirm whether it vocalises, and to figure out why.

To coax the fish into breeding, she tries to recreate its natural spawning conditions in freshwater tanks: cold water temperatures (6-8 degrees) and a short daylight period recreated using lamps.

Bolgan keeps male and female char separately, but once the females are ripe with eggs, she transfers two males and one female to an observation tank. For the first two days she keeps the sexes separate using a divider.

Each time, the males appear to compete until one has established dominance. “One male keeps swimming around the tank and the other hides,” she says. Often the female will dig a nest in the gravel bedding to prepare for spawning.

When she removes the divider, the courtship ritual begins. “The [dominant] male swims with the mouth really close to the tail of the female, and the mouth of the female is really close to the tail of the male. They swim in a circular pattern, and they can go on like this for a couple of hours.”

But there’s one catch: of the nine pairs she has observed at the time of writing, none have completed spawning, and Bolgan has yet to hear any vocalise. She says that because her char are from farmed populations, they may have lost the ability to breed naturally, or her observation tank may be too small for spawning.

“I have a feeling that they rely more on other communication channels. We can’t exclude sound production yet, but maybe it’s not their main communication channel,” she says. Nonetheless, her research still provides new insight into the behaviour of Arctic char.

Later this year, Bolgan will record underwater at Lake Windermere in Cumbria, where the exact location of char spawning grounds is known. She’s hoping to film the fish here too. This should provide better evidence as to whether wild char vocalise during the breeding season.

But even if Arctic char aren’t vocal, they’re still likely to use sound. Bolgan says all fish hear and use sound to pick up information about their environment – for detecting prey, avoiding predators and locating spawning and feeding grounds. Research has shown that many species of reef fish use acoustic information to locate their spawning grounds. “The soundscape is like a fingerprint. Every area sounds different,” she says.

Scientists don’t know how salmon locate their spawning grounds, but sound could provide one explanation. A research student at GMIT now hopes to record salmon vocalising at the Marine Institute facility in Mayo later this year. Understanding fish acoustics is vital for their conservation, says Bolgan’s supervisor, biologist Dr Joanne O’Brien. The idea is to minimise human noise at critical points in their life cycle. One of O’Brien’s long-term goals is to set up underwater recording stations in Irish lakes to monitor fish populations remotely.

While marine mammals tend to communicate in a wide range of frequencies, fish use the same low frequencies occupied by noise from human activities such as shipping, putting them at greater risk.

“Noise affects fish and mammals in the same way,” says Bolgan. If I’m trying to speak with you and the noise gets louder, I don’t hear you.”

“So if my point in the communication is to aggregate with you to reproduce, maybe I don’t hear you, maybe I don’t manage to catch you, and reproduction fails.”

SPLENDID ISOLATION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHAR

Arctic char arrived in Ireland after the last ice age ended, more than 10,000 years ago. The species, a member of the salmon family, lives in the cold climates of the northern hemisphere and survives farther north than any other freshwater fish.

Like salmon, most Arctic char populations feed in the sea and migrate up rivers to spawn. But the Irish population is unique, spending its entire life cycle in freshwater – mostly in deep, cold lakes near the west coast.

One theory suggests that, after the ice sheets retreated, Irish char populations simply stopped migrating to warming seas, where competition and the risk of being eaten was higher. It has remained isolated in Irish lakes for millenniums.

Arctic char has been recorded in more than 70 Irish lakes, but is believed to be extinct in about a third of these now. It is rated as “vulnerable” on Ireland’s red list of threatened species, and its decline has been linked to the introduction of non-native fish. It requires cold, well-oxygenated water, so is also threatened by pollution and climate change.

The species spends most of the year in deep water, but comes up to shallow lake beds to breed in late autumn and winter. The female digs a nest and releases her eggs, which the male fertilises externally. But little is known about the specific spawning behaviour of char in Ireland or the exact location of breeding sites.

Marta Bolgan’s PhD at GMIT is funded by the Irish Research Council, while her research at Lake Windermere will be supported by the Marine Institute

Plans for massive salmon farm in Ireland’s Galway Bay run Into troubled waters

Environmentalists and local fishermen concerned that sea lice from farm will harm wild salmon and trout populations

Earth Island Journal, 1 May, 2013

The project's backers say the over 1,000-acre farm will bring jobs to coastal communities, while helping to meet demand for salmon in a sustainable manner. But critics claim it threatens wild fish populations.

The Irish Sea Fisheries Board, a government agency, is planning to develop the salmon farm near Inis Oírr, the smallest of three Gaelic-speaking islands that are famous for their unique limestone geology, rare wildflowers, and ancient archaeology.The farm is slated to produce 15,000 tons of organic-certified salmon per year, more than doubling Ireland's production of farmed salmon.

But a coalition of environmentalists, anglers, and tourism-dependent businesses is fighting the project. They say the farm will provide a breeding ground for parasitic sea lice that could threaten wild salmon populations.

Environmental groups says that sea lice from salmon farms are one of the most significant threats facing wild salmon populations in Europe. Parasite infestations in fish farms, where thousands of fish are stocked in small netted areas all year round, is known to significantly increase the number of lice in surrounding waters. According to a study published last year, sea lice are responsible for 39 percent of deaths among young salmon at sea.

In March, up to 2,000 people, including Icelandic conservationist Orri Vigfusson, a Goldman Environmental Prize recipient, marched in Galway city to protest the proposed fishery.

Even government agencies are at loggerheads over the project: While the fisheries board is proposing the project, Inland Fisheries Ireland — the country's authority for recreational fishing— is against the fish farm. It has published a fact sheet(PDF) which says that sea lice from salmon farms are a risk to wild salmon and sea trout, and that interbreeding between farm escapees and wild salmon threatens native stocks.

“The scale of the present proposal is of a very significant concern as it provides for a greater production tonnage of salmon at this one location than is currently being produced nationally,” IFI says on its website. “In the past salmon farms were considered large when they were licensed for a harvest of 2000 tons — the current proposal is for a farm harvesting 15,000 tons based in two sites in Galway Bay."

Inland Fisheries has called for more detailed study of the area's salmon and sea trout populations before the salmon farm is developed.

Most of the Aran islands' land mass is a protected conservation area, as is the Corrib river and lake system that is home to salmon and sea trout that migrate through the bay. But the proposed salmon farm site is not in protected waters.

The Irish Sea Fisheries Board's head of aquaculture development, Donal Maguire, says that agency has been supporting coastal communities for 50 years and would not propose the project if it posed an environmental threat.

He says new research by Ireland's Marine Institute shows that sea lice are not a major threat to wild salmon populations.

The project's environmental impact assessment says sea lice distributed from the farm will stay in the immediate area; that escaped salmon will pose little threat to wild populations; and that the project will have no significant impact on protected species or habitats. The farm will also be certified organic, meaning it will have a lower stocking density than conventional farms, and salmon feed will come from fisheries that meet the European Union's sustainability standard.

But critics also say the fish farm project is rife with conflicts of interests.

"We're really concerned about the process of this, where it's essentially being imposed on us by the minister and his agents," says Enda Conneely, one of Inis Oirr's 249 inhabitants.

The Irish Department of Agriculture originally tasked the Irish Sea Fisheries Board to develop the salmon farm as part of its food and fisheries strategy. Now the senior minister at the same department, Simon Coveney, is in charge of making a decision on whether to approve the project. Some observers believe Coveney’s mind is already made up. Éamon Ó Cuív, a legislator who represents the Aran Islands, told The Irish Times that he was asked by Coveney to garner support for the project among islanders.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit Friends of the Irish Environment has lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman, an official Irish government watchdog, saying the farm would break a government commitment not to expand salmon farming until issues with sea lice are resolved.

The NGO Salmon Watch Ireland told Earth Island Journal that if the project is approved it will appeal the decision and could ultimately bring a legal challenge. The community co-operative on Inis Oírr has also indicated that it will use “national and international avenues of appeal” if the project is approved. In a detailed submission(PDF), the co-op said that the environmental impact statement lacks crucial data, and that due to the hazards of landing at the island's pier, none of the jobs generated by the project will benefit Inis Oírr itself.

With island and coastal communities hit hard by emigration and unemployment following Ireland's economic collapse, jobs are at the heart of this debate. "We badly, badly need the jobs and exports," says Donal Maguire.

The Irish Sea Fisheries Board says the project will create 500 jobs, and points to a smaller salmon farm by the mountainous Clare Island, 50 miles to the north, which it says is vital for keeping that island's small population viable.

The fisheries board says that the Galway Bay farm could even become a tourist destination — an opportunity to show the fishing heritage of the Aran Islands being "brought into the 21st century in a green, organic manner".

But opponents worry that the industrial scale of the development could hamper tourism, on which the Aran Islands are heavily dependent.

"We have the same customers coming back for the last 20 years, and they don't want this," says Enda Conneely, who runs a guesthouse and restaurant on Inis Oírr. "You go out to the Aran Islands to go away from industrial scale farming."

Tapping in to high technology's heavyweight history

An exhibition in Galway pays homage to Ireland’s small role in the history of tech manufacturing, writes  Lenny Antonelli

Irish Times, 4 November, 2011

JUST A month after the death of Steve Jobs, it’s fitting that the first exhibit you see inside Galway’s new National Computer and Communications Museum showcases some of Apple’s most iconic computers, including the original 1984 Macintosh.

“It was the first popular computer to use a graphics interface – to use windows, to use icons and to use a mouse,” curator Brendan Smith says of the first Mac. “There was a little programme on it showing people how to use a mouse.”

Beside it sits an Apple II, one of the world’s first popular desktop computers. On its underside are words rarely seen on computers today: Made in Ireland. Apple opened a factory in Cork in 1981, its first outside the US.

The new museum pays homage to Ireland’s small role in the history of tech manufacturing – among its exhibits are a telephone exchange built in Galway by Nortel, floppy disks made in Limerick by Verbatim, and a 6ft “minicomputer” manufactured here in the 1970s by Digital.

But the museum’s centrepiece is a row of classic computers from the 1970s and 80s, including the famous BBC Micro. The broadcaster launched the machine in 1981 to accompany TV shows on computer education. More than a million were sold, mostly to schools. The machine was designed to link up easily with other devices, such as musical equipment. The bands A-Ha, Depeche Mode and Erasure all used it to compose songs.

Sitting next to the BBC Micro is a rarity: the Dragon, the only desktop computer ever designed and built in Wales. Launched in 1982, the machine flopped partly because its keyboard only had upper-case letters – its manufacturer failed to take heed of the growing demand for word processing.

The Apprentice’s Sir Alan Sugar didn’t make that mistake when he launched the Amstrad CPC, also on display. “He looked at offices full of people, full of secretaries, and what were they using? They were using an electronic typewriter,” Smith says. So in 1984 he launched his computer to the mass market. The range stayed in production for eight years, sold three million units, and sent Sugar on his way to vast wealth.

The museum also charts the history of the the laptop, boasting a 1983 Compaq Portable – a huge and heavy computer dubbed a “luggable” that was only deemed portable because it folded up and had a handle on top.

It also features one of Motorola’s classic 1980s “brick” mobile phones. Smith points out that watching Captain Kirk use a handheld “communicator” in Star Trek inspired Motorola’s Martin Cooper to develop the first mobile phone. Technologies such as the tablet computer and voice translation software were also inspired by the classic sci-fi show.

Space travel, real or fictional, had a heavy influence on early computer games such as Space Invaders and Asteroid. Both can be found in the museum’s retro-gaming area, home to iconic machines such as the Atari and the Sega Mega Drive. The museum runs retro-gaming nights each month and teaches computer programming to kids by showing them how to input and manipulate the code for classic games.

Smith is also expecting delivery of a full-size arcade machine soon. “We’re going to get a school to build up the electronics behind it. It’s not just a museum piece, it will be built by children,” he says. Plans are also afoot for classes for children on building mobile apps. Smith wants the museum to inspire children to become Ireland’s tech innovators of the future.

The museum also charts Ireland’s role in the development of modern communications, from the laying of the first underwater telegraph cable from Valentia Island to Newfoundland, to Guglielmo Marconi’s pioneering work in Ireland on long-distance radio communication. “Marconi’s mother grabbed him, brought him over [from Italy] to London and introduced him to the Anglo-Irish aristocracy that she was a part of, being from the Jameson whiskey family,” Smith says.

“He got his seed capital from people like them. She introduced him. Like any Irish mother, she was quite pushy.”

Marconi would go on to develop the first regular wireless telegraph across the Atlantic, between Clifden and Canada.

Radio technology spread rapidly after that, and one engaging display at the museum suggests the world’s first general radio broadcast might have been sent by Irish republicans in Dublin during the Rising on Easter Monday 1916. Before this, transmissions were directed to specific recipients. “They definitely did send out a broadcast, whether anybody picked it up or not, who knows,” Smith says. The group’s message read: “Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country is rising.”

The era of mass broadcast arrived soon after – the museum features classic radios from the 1930s and 50s – and brought huge cultural and social change. Radio stations started catering to a new, youthful audience.

“For the first time you had young people that dressed differently, had different types of hairstyle, different types of social attitudes, and different types of music,” Smith says. “You had young people in Warsaw, in Dublin, in London, in Washington, listening to the same type of music.”

In the 1950s Sony popularised the pocket transistor radio, another of the museum’s artefacts. “The great thing for young people was that it had batteries, it meant that you got away from plugging it into the wall, from the house, from the parents.”

Smith says some of his older students are often intimated by MP3 players and smartphones. “They think it’s totally for young people and that it’s kind of scary.” Then he takes out his 1950s pocket radio. “I say to them that over 50 years ago, you scared the pants off your parents, you were the teenagers at the time listening to anything and everything. Nothing has really changed.”

The National Computer and Communications Museum is in NUI Galway’s Digital Enterprise Research Institute.