Balkan Trout Restoration Group Blog

January 16th

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 13:40:00 +0000

January 16th, 2019, a historic day for our group (☺): the first fish are finally swimming in our experimental RAS! One year old brown trout seem to be feeling fine, and we hope that soon the system will be full of different fish and also researchers planning future experiments.

>Egg stripping at Bled hatchery. Fertilized eggs were transported to our experimental RAS.

> Brane from Bled hatchery counts one year old brown trout to be transported to Rodica.

> Brown trout ready to be transferred into small pool at our RAS.

> First brown trout entering their new home ☺

> Nejc has gently moved fertilized eggs to hatching boxes.

> Well done!

> Aleš and Nejc arranging the eggs into one layer.

Busy September

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 13:17:00 +0000

We are back with some news from busy September 2018…

1. Nejc went to the Last best place (Montana USA) to participate in ConGen 2018 (http://www.umt.edu/sell/cps/congen2018/): Applications of New Sequencing Technologies to Understand Population Structure, Adaptation, and Environmental Influences on Genomic Variation, September 9-15, 2018. Course packed with useful information spread by the Superstars of the field in most beautiful surroundings. This combination handed him what he describes a semi-spiritualistic journey with new skills to ride the freshly discovered wave of élan vital. Among sponsors of the event were local breweries and NASA, which might have contributed slightly as well.

2. Ida and Simona have participated at the 8th Congress of the Genetics Society of Slovenia and the 8th meeting of the Slovenian Society for Human Genetics, which was held in Radenci, Slovenia, from 19th to 21st September 2018 (http://genetika2018.alfa-faktor.si/eng/index.html). During the congress, Ida gave an oral presentation, entitled Transcriptome Analysis and Cellular Background of the Pigment Pattern in Marble and Brown Trout, in The Golden Chromosome Session, and she was awarded with the third place among the young Slovenian geneticists. Congratulations, Ida!

> Ida during her presentation.

> Announcement for The Golden Chromosome award recipients.

> Ida with the diploma and 3^rd place award.

3. Laboratory reconstruction: after the damage caused by water leaking at the end of 2017, our lab was renewed (floor, furniture, electrical and plumbing installation) during the summer months. Looks nice and a bit sterile J, but when occupied with smiley, fully motivated colleagues and students, we are sure it will became a pleasant place where many interesting results will be generated…

4. Last, but not least… During the summer months, our new research facility, the first recirculating unit for experimental fish rearing (RAS) in Slovenia, was being constructed. We are all looking forward to see the circulating water and fish of all life stages swimming in the new tanks within the next few weeks. Recirculating experimental aquaculture system was partially financed by The Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS), from the framework of Public tender for the co-financing new research equipment (Package 17), and performed by Daniel Gospić, G2O (http://www.g2o.si/si/o-nas/).

> On the construction site.

IMPRESS 2018 Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:32:00 +0000

Between 17^th and 19^th June, I and Nejc attended the final conference of the IMPRESS project. It was held in a small but beautiful town on the Southern coast of Norway, called Arendal. We had two intensive days full of very good presentations, on different topics, like cultivation strategies, conservation, reproduction, gamete quality… with a focus on three diadromous fish species (salmon, eel and sturgeon).

> Poster session: Nejc presenting his work. Congrats on the 2^nd poster prize Nejc!

> The closing conference debate.

Besides the formal part of the conference, there were events organised in the evenings where we had the pleasure to get to know other scientists. They were all very friendly and relaxed so we also enjoyed the social aspect of the conference very much.

> On the final evening we went for a boat trip in the Arendal archipelago.

One more thing definitely worth mentioning; we had a pleasure to meet two very committed fishermen, which are eagerly working on the making of a fish ladder for sea trout to trespass an old dam (one of them is doing his master thesis on the topic). With some financing but mostly their effort they made a great job so we’re looking forward to receiving some good news of successful migration of the sea trout.

> Kjetil and Kurt took us to the construction site.

The conference was very well organised and definitely full of interesting results and useful information so we hope the whole story is not ending there and that there will be a following project IMPRESS 2 too!

New publication: Interspecific germ cell transplantation: a new light in the conservation of valuable Balkan trout genetic resources?

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 05:54:00 +0000

In May, a new publication on interspecific germ cell transplantation was published. Brown trout and grayling germ cells were successfully transplanted into rainbow trout larvae, which was confirmed by fluorescent labelling and PCR.

We are now waiting for them to release some eggs. Fingers crossed!

Ida defended her PhD dissertation

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 11:43:00 +0000

On Friday, June 8^th, Ida successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled "TRANSCRIPTOME ANALYSIS AND CELLULAR BACKGROUND OF THE MARBLE PIGMENT PATTERN FORMATION IN MARBLE TROUT (Salmo marmoratus)" at the Biosciences-Biotechnology doctoral study program, Biotechnical faculty, University of Ljubljana. The committee and audience has praised Ida's scientific achievements and her presentation. Congratulations Ida!

>Compliments from prof. Peter Dovč on Ida's well done and lovely presentation.

>Back in the sunshine again (no more worries and no more pain)

New publication: First successful vitrification of salmonid ovarian tissue

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Tue, 09 May 2017 12:17:00 +0000

The Hungarian-Slovenian collaboration is producing good results. A new article, describing the first vitrification of salmonid ovarian tissue, was accepted in Cryobiology. The method developed for brown trout could be applied to the conservation of female genetic resources of other salmonid species, including endangered and endemic species or populations.

Idrija fly-fishing festival

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Mon, 16 May 2016 13:37:00 +0000

Nejc and Aleš have recently attended Idrija fly-fishing festival, where Aleš gave a talk on marble trout conservation genetics.

In the evenings, we had an opportunity to watch films on fly-fishing and nature and water conservation including the famous Damnation by Patagonia. Fly-tying demonstrations and fly-casting workshops were the highlights during the day. Also an opportunity to fly-fishing the Idrijca River, which for some reason didn’t turned out as real option this time.

Isolation of spermatogonia cells

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 10:04:00 +0000

As we already mentioned in some previous post we got a new Hungarian-Slovenian project on spermatogonia transplantation. Even if the project officially starts at the beginning of 2016, we were all eager to start with the first step – spermatogonia isolation and cryopreservation.

For that occasion Jelena and Zoran from Dr. Ákos Horváth group came to Slovenia to try to isolate these cells from brown and marble trout. Beside the isolation of spermatogonia we also took some samples of the whole testis and the pituitary gland for gene expression analysis.

We were quite successful with the isolation itself, as we optimized the protocol by the end of the visit, but had some problems with cryopreservation, which we still have to solve. In either case, the overall impression was that we successfully started the project and we all look forward to a great collaboration, with new challenges but also exciting results.

> Of course we couldn’t miss a walk to lake Bled, just before collecting brown trout from the hatchery (from left: Zoran, Aleš, Simona and Jelena)

> At the hatchery

>Everyone observing Jelena at work

>Toni collecting males

> Lab work...

> Isolated testis

> Zoran excited about successful spermatogonia cells separation with percoll

The Lobster

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 14:32:00 +0000

In line with BTRG tradition, Tamara, Urška, Ida, David, Nejc and Aleš went to International Film Festival in Ljubljana (LIFFE 2015), to see the movie entitled "The Lobster" (jastog).

It was an easy job to pick up the movie, as this was the only title available containing a word associate with water biology.

The movie was of course not about crayfish but mostly about single people, short-sighted couples and the loners. Worthy of watching. Click here to find out more or watch the trailer.

Fish Reproduction Group has a blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 15:02:00 +0000

Fish Reproduction Group from the Department of Aquaculture, Szent István University has just established a bolg.
Take a look! Interesting, funny and cool.

>Esther, the designer of the site, waiting patiently for a good snap to be posted on the blog.

Searching for interesting patterns

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:28:00 +0000

As you may already know, one of our research area is studying the molecular background of marble pigment pattern formation in trout. The main focus of our study is marble trout and its spectacular pigmentation, but in order to develop hypothesis about general mechanism of pigment pattern formation, we are interested also in other fish that display similar marble (labyrinthine-like) patterns.

This month Dr. Ákos Horváth kindly invited us to Gödöllő. With just two hours’ drive from their Department of Aquaculture we arrived to a hatchery in Lillafüred where “Tiger trouts” are reared. These hybrids between brown and brook trout exhibit an interesting labyrinthine pigment pattern, similar to the one of marble trout. Since the owner of the hatchery György Hoitsy is a really kind man (and an excellent cook!), he let us take samples from several tiger trouts, and also their parental species. We are now excited to see if the molecular pathways involved in the formation of this pattern are similar to the one in marble trout.

>Ákos, Jelena and Zoran were excited to start sampling

>catching the samples (from the left: Simona, Gergely, Ákos, and György)

>Tiger trout

>First course of our delicious lunch at the hatchery

Apart from “field work” we also had the opportunity to discuss some future plans about the Hungarian-Slovenian project about spermatogonia transplantataion that will involve the two groups and will start next year.

Of course we couldn’t go home without tasting some of the local cuisine, including fruit soup and the so called Hortobágyi palacsinta (pancakes filled with meat).

>Hortobágyi palacsinta

Genetika 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:14:00 +0000

The Genetic Society of Slovenia and the Slovenian Society for Human Genetics organised the international congress Genetika 2015, which took place in Rogaška Slatina last September.

Three days of talks included presentations of Slovenian and international scientists whose work is related to human, animal, microbial or plant genetics. There was also the traditional Golden Chromosome Award competition, which gives the opportunity to young researchers to present their work and latest results.

This year I was among the candidates, so I presented some preliminary results we got from RNA-seq analysis of marble and brown trout skin. Beside the adrenaline rush at the beginning of the talk everything went great.

>Rogaška Slatina

>Ida during the talk

Time for something new

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 07:23:00 +0000

The transplantation of the germ cells from a donor organism into recipient organism is becoming a promising approach in preservation of endangered species, including fish. It is, for instance, theoretically possible to engineer recipient fish (e.g., easy spawners such as carp) in a way that they produce offspring of donor fish (e.g., demanding spawners such as Adriatic nase) instead of their own.

To study these transplantation methods, BTRG has just started collaboration with Dr. Ákos Horváth in a frame of Hungarian-Slovenian project, financed by OTKA and ARRS.

To find out more about theoretical basis of spermatogonia transplantation in fish, Simona and Aleš have recently attended International Workshop on the Biology of Fish Gametes in Ancona, Italy.

>The event was hosted by the Faculty of Economy "G. Fuà" Ancona in old Villarey barracks, a building in the centre of town, which used to be used as military headquarters.

>We had opportunity to meet and listen to Dr. Goro Yoshizaki, who first started spermatogonial transplantation in fish. Dr. Elsa Cabrita and Dr. Martin Pšenička were the moderators of this session.

>We got acquainted with Dr. Jelena Lujić and Zoran Marinović (on the right) from the Ákos lab, who are about to come to our lab for the project work. Timea, Ákos and Esther in the front, Simona and Aleš in the rear.

>One of the Ancona’s highlights leading into temptation to hang out with fauns and satyrs.

>Thanks go to the local organizers with Dr.Oliana Carnevali at the head, for well-organized and nice event. Our boss MN would be overjoyed if she saw the gender ratio…

ESPCR2015

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:50:00 +0000

I had a pleasure to attend the ESPCR2015 that was held in the beautiful Edinburgh this year.

Many important names from the area of pigment cell research also attended the meeting so I had the opportunity to meet them in person and to discuss about some results and ideas. I was also busy presenting our poster during poster sessions. To summarise, it was a great experience.

New publication: TEM analysis of pigment cells in the skin of marble and brown trout

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:00:00 +0000

The ultrastructure and organisation of pigment cells in the skin of marble and brown trout was analysed in the paper.
We demonstrated a higher organisation in the skin of brown trout. Also the erythrophore ultrastructure in salmonids was described for the first time.

Lištica trout...struggling to survive

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 15:24:00 +0000

In August, Johannes, Saša and I, on our way to Albania, stopped in Široki Brijeg, Bosnia–Herzegovina to visit Vinko Musa, who showed us around the upper Lištica River, which is inhabited by a strange kind of trout, half brown half softmouth… Despite unreasonable stocking with the Atlantic brown trout that has been taking place in Lištica for quite some time, the native strain is still persisting.

>Lištica trout. Another species...go for it, guys!

>We saw some really nice stretches along the river…

…with a little drop of poison everywhere.

>Vinko quickly caught some trout…

>Johannes took pictures…

…and Saša and I took fin-clips.

To be continued...

SMBE 2015 and Seita Miyazawa's visit

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 14:27:00 +0000

From 12^th-16^th July I had the opportunity to attend the 23nd Annual Meeting of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution, where I also presented our poster with some preview of the transcriptome data from the skin of marble and brown trout. With several interesting talks and posters placed in a fascinating venue of Hobfburg palace it was a unique experience.

Among more than 1300 attendants from all over the world there was also our Japanese co-worker Seita Miyazawa. After the SMBE meeting he came to visit Slovenia and our lab for the first time. We had the opportunity to exchange our NGS data, some new ideas but also to show him some of our beautiful natural sights.

SMBE meeting in Hofburg palace:

Seita in Slovenia:

Visiting Bled...

and Gorge Vintgar (in the photo: Simona and Seita)

Škocjan caves were quite a refreshing change during these extreme hot days in Slovenia

Piran

Seita had the opportunity to see the hatchery in Tolmin, but also to try fly-fishing in the beautiful Soča river

Seita with his fly–fishing “instructor” – Nejc

Seita, Simona and Aleš

A new publication: genetic analysis of the Balkan minnow

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:28:00 +0000

A new paper has been recently published in MPE, in which we studied phylogeography of minnow (genus Phoxinus) populations in the Balkan Peninsula - not in the Western Europe, but in the Balkan Peninsula, using molecular methods.

Some highlights of the paper:

Highly divergent genetic clades of Phoxinus were detected in the western Balkans.
The two species view (Danubian P. phoxinus and Adriatic P. lumaireul), proposed by morphologists, was not supported.
Revision of Phoxinus classification in the studied area is suggested.
The clades extend along the Adriatic area crossing the main watershed boundaries.
Specific genetic signatures point to the possibility of underground fish dispersion.

>Minnow from the Skadar drainage (Rijeka Crnojevića, Montenegro)

In the field…

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 12:23:00 +0000

On Tuesday I joined Alain Crivelli, who is currently in Slovenia, Dušan Jesenšek and other members of RD Tolmin on the field. I collected some skin samples of hybrids downstream, where the populations of marble trout have been hybridizing with brown trout, while they were monitoring the pure populations of marble trout upstream. Their study, with the purpose of observing population dynamics, has been already a long collaboration between the groups and is still going on.
Even if I needed to sample hybrids for the pigment pattern study I’m happy to say that there were not so many of them but when we moved upstream, there were plenty of marble trouts.

>Boys catching trouts

>Measuring and collecting samples

>A pure marble trout

The 1st Slovene Microscopy Symposium

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:40:00 +0000

Ida attended the 1st Slovene Microscopy Symposium, which took place this May in Piran, Slovenia. She presented the results of our research on the ultrastructure and position of pigment cells in the skin of marble and brown trout that was made in collaboration with the Institute of Cell Biology.

>Ida presenting her poster to a symposium participant during the poster session.

A pleasant visit

noreply@blogger.com (Ida) — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:23:00 +0000

In April Ákos Horváth with his colleagues and Elsa Cabrita came for a one-week visit to Slovenia in the framework of research activities connected to COST project Aquagamete (http://aquagamete.webs.upv.es/). We joined them for two days on the field. In river Sava we caught a beautiful male huchen (Hucho hucho) and grayling (Thymallus thymallus). We collected the sperm for cryopreservation and stored it for later use. Apart for field work we discussed our future collaboration plans and projects and had a pleasant and tasteful social event.

>Tasting local cuisine

>Observing the Sava river

>The huchen being caught

>Toni Strgar from RD Bled and the huchen posing together

>Sperm collection

>Cryopreservation of sperm

Show your support...

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:43:00 +0000

If you care about trout and want to aid the conservation of their rare and endangered populations, buy a fancy outdoor T-shirt and contribute to funding for the research.

For more information please visist Wild Trout T-shirt or Wild Webshop.

Summer refreshment (nepotistic publicity)

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 07:27:00 +0000

Matija Snoj, a promissing fly-fisherman and guitar player singing on the concert with Pavle Kavec and Oko, Rožnik (Ljubljana), at the age of 15.

If you like this, you can also listen to two other numbers from this concert, Come on and La Grange. Enjoy!

New publications…

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Thu, 07 May 2015 11:08:00 +0000

A comprehensive review on Rainbow Trout in Europe (introduction, naturalization and impacts)-a side product of David's PhD work-has been recently published in Reviews in Fisheries Sciences and Aquaculture. David did a great job; I am not sure if I know anyone else, who would be persistent and motivated enough to produce such a … paper.

I would like to present another, not so freshly published paper in JFB, about genetic and morphological variation of Umbra krameri in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The paper has finally got pagination details and thus fulfilled the last condition to be posted on the blog.

The core of the hucho populations is in the Balkans

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi) — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 07:37:00 +0000

Ljubljana, March 19, 2015. As a contribution to the world water day this year (March, 22.) scientists and experts in the field of fisheries, together with non-governmental organizations presented a survey on the distribution of hucho (Hucho hucho) populations in the Balkans. In the framework of the international campaign "Save the Blue Heart of Europe", 18 scientists from seven countries for the first time carried out an extensive survey of the distribution of hucho populations in rivers between Slovenia and Montenegro. The results showed that the Balkan rivers represent the last hot spot of this species. Natural populations were found in 43 hucho rivers in total length of 1.842 kilometers, corresponding to 65% of all populations globally.

>Miroslav Žaberl, the president of the Fisheries Association of Slovenia, Neža Posnjak, Campaign Coordinator for Slovenia, Ulrich Eichelmann, RiverWatch, and Steve Weiss, Karl-Franzens University Graz, at the press-conference in Ljubljana.

The major threat to these populations is a massive hydropower development plan. Practically all hucho rivers are targets of substantial hydropower exploitation. A total of 93 dam projects were identified directly in river reaches supporting hucho and a large number of additional projects are located in tributaries or headwater reaches upstream of hucho habitat that will invariably degrade environmental conditions downstream. The full study can be found at: http://balkanrivers.net/sites/default/files/Huchen_Study_2015.pdf

>Uli is stocking hucho into the Sava River close to Ljubljana.