ABOUT

Much has changed with understanding of Louisiana’s inland fish fauna since publication of Neil H. Douglas’ book Freshwater Fishes of Louisiana in 1974. The book treated 170 species, including 21 marine invaders. A recently published checklist based on holdings in Tulane University’s Royal D. Suttkus fish collection, the Neil H. Douglas fish collection, now largely based at Tulane University, and data from fish collections in the FishNet2 network of fish collection databases has revealed that the Louisiana fish fauna comprised at least 224 fish species (165 primarily freshwater, 28 primarily marine, and 31 euryhaline or diadromous) in 45 families. The increase can be attributed to discovery of new species, new distribution records of both native and exotic species, and the realization that many more marine species inhabit coastal inland waters than previously thought. The Louisiana landscape and its streams and rivers have also changed considerably since 1974, and this has no doubt affected fish distribution and abundance patterns. An updated compendium on Louisiana’s inland and coastal fishes is long overdue. Our plan is create both a printed book and a web resource that can be continually updated. The process will start with assembly of a comprehensive database of all Louisiana fish collection records, based on museum holdings (vouchered records) and verifiable records from other sources. The database will be used to identify areas of the state in need of additional field surveys to document fish changes. The next phase of work will involve georeferencing all occurrence records in the updated database, and using the data to produce updated distribution maps, habitat (niche) models for all species, and a comprehensive analysis of species abundance trends. The latter two products will be especially valuable for updating the conservation status of species on the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries list of fish species of conservation concern. The final phase of the work will be organizing the task of writing the introductory chapters and recruiting authors to write accounts for all the treated species. We anticipate that the overall project will take 5 years to complete. However, we intend to publish a number of papers and intermediate reports during this process, including a distribution atlas, and summaries of the data analyses and niche modeling results, to inform the scientific community and general public about our progress.