BIO SCI 97 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: National Climate Assessment, Devils Hole, Pupfish
3 Sep 2014
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Document Summary
Pupfish (in the genus cyprinodon) are in the killifish family (cyprinodontidae) and are closely related to the california killifish (fundulus parvipinnis), present in newport back bay. Pupfish are descendants of an ancestral species group that once had a broader range in what are now californian and mexican desert areas. Today pupfish occur in three deserts: the mojave, sonoran and. There is a beautiful website with pictures of pupfish and many other desert fishes at http://desertfishes. org/topindex. html. There are roughly >20 distinct populations in an area <3000. Pupfish can survive phenomenally low dissolved oxygen square miles. They are very tolerant of a wide range of temperatures and salinities. For example, in death valley there are five species of pupfish. Temperatures there are greater than 49 degrees c from may to september! Pupfish became isolated in desert springs during the pleistocene as uplift by the sierras caused a climate change that dried up former lakes in which pupfish lived.
