I get a ton of joy each fall from this red maple in my backyard in Pittsboro. It has really shined since I killed the English ivy that was suffocating it before I bought the property

I developed Missouri’s river/fish monitoring protocols for my PhD research while at Mizzou. I got to work on the Meramec from Steelville to the mouth. Spent dozens of nights camping on the gravel bars — what a dream

My master’s was on the New River endemic fishes, so let me know if you ever want any tips on where to snorkel

Lots of hypotheses for richness but leading ones are,
- not being glaciated
- stream captures & re-routing
- relatively stable geologic history
- lots of different rocks types
- topographic diversity
- really big river networks that all come together near Memphis
- abundance of water thru time

More:
- Why does freshwater fish species richness differ between Pacific & Atlantic drainages of the Americas? (2018)
- Fishes of the Central Appalachians (1972) by Bob Jenkins.

The “New” River drainage is fascinating. It’s a time capsule for coolwater endemics, including 3 endemic darters

Lots of them:
- Intro of Fishes of VA (1994)
- Zoogeography of freshwater fishes of the SE US (1986)
- A diverse & endangered aquatic ecosystem of the southeast US (1995)
- Conservation of stream fishes: patterns of diversity, rarity, & risk (1988)
- species & speciation in phylogenetic systematics

I caught this interview on my commute in yesterday morning. Super insightful. Nice job!

I think that’s a Flathead Chub in the upper right. Wild that this was among the most abundant fish in the pre-channelization lower Missouri River. Now it’s extirpated from the lower Missouri R post channelization. The historical fish collection at Mizzou has jars of these but I’ve never seen one IRL